


Journey to Perfection

by Arytra



Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers, Power Rangers Dino Thunder
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-20
Updated: 2014-07-01
Packaged: 2018-02-05 10:30:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 24
Words: 37,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1815316
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arytra/pseuds/Arytra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Adopting Trent was the only sensible choice Tommy and Anton could make, but trying to raised a teen in a world filled with danger isn't easy.  And for Tommy, it's easily the hardest journey of his life.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Bachelor Party

**Author's Note:**

> So, I wrote this for the Cotton Candy Fluff Bingo. Names of the chapters are the prompts used. Enjoy!

“You really didn’t need to throw the vase, Hayley,” Tommy told her as he looked past where she’d thrown it, looking at the pieces scattered on the floor. “You could have just said no.”

“You shouldn’t have asked me when I was drunk then,” she answered, slurring her words a bit. Her reasoning was most likely accurate, but Tommy was incredibly drunk himself at the moment and his judgment wasn’t perfect. “And I’m not saying no.”

“You threw a vase at me!” Tommy said. He wasn’t sure if she was too drunk to have good aim or if she intentionally missed, but there were definitely pieces of ex-vase behind him. “That’s a no.”

“That’s a ‘you have better reflexes than a jack-rabbit and you’re an idiot’,” she answered, trying to give him a stern look. “Not a no.”

“I’m not stupid,” he argued. “I almost have a PhD.”

“Still stupid,” she argued. He headed over to her as she stumbled, and helped her sit down. She leaned back into him. “Really stupid.”

“I had to, Hales,” he said gently, wishing that they had had this conversation the minute he got back instead of waiting until he was plastered to do it. “The world…”

“Yeah, yeah,” she interrupted, but sighed. “It was just the moon.”

“Didn’t you say that the moon affects the tides and…”

“Scientific Hayley isn’t here. Angry and Worried Hayley is,” she answered. “And you’re lucky.”

“I am?” He asked, quickly wishing he’d bit his tongue after he said it. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to register with Hayley.

“Yep,” she said. “Because Angry and Worried Hayley isn’t as mad as your soon-to-be Super Angry Fiance.”

Tommy groaned. “He can’t be that angry.”

“You took off from a dig, risked your life, and he had to hear about it from me,” she reminded him. “I’m mad at you. He’s pissed.”

Tommy rubbed his temples, reached over, and downed another shot of rum. He shook his head a bit from the burn and looked at Hayley. “Okay, but if he forgives me, then will you be my best man?”

Hayley rolled her eyes and leaned back into the couch. “Fine. But I get to choose the bachelor party.”

“Done.”

***

Best man or not, she refused to go with him when he went to see Anton. He ignored Smitty’s slight snickering and pushed his resolve forward which would have been easier to do if he hadn’t been fighting a hangover and the remnants of an adrenaline rush. He made his way over to where his boss was and waited. He heard the annoyed ‘come in’ and swallowed as he did so. Several things had made him decide to work for Anton Mercer: The fact that the man was heavily involved with his investments, the intelligence he displayed, and his way of teaching. Ironically, it’s also what made Tommy fall in love with him. Smitty was, of course, the official intern since Tommy and Anton had wanted to be on equal footing when they got together, but Tommy has insisted on coming back to the digs anyway to learn what he could. Both of the Fernandezes found it adorable and had told him so. Tommy had let them considering their son was watching and Tommy was not about to be a bad role model to a kid that was Justin’s age. 

He headed into the room and looked at Anton who wasn’t looking up at him. Tommy tried not to wince as he recognized just how angry his lover was with him. “I take it you had a good vacation,” Anton said cooly. Tommy kept from groaning.

“It was interesting,” he said. “I would have been back sooner, but…”

“Hayley informed me about the family emergency,” he said, looking up. There was no emphasis on any of the words, but just by invoking her name, Tommy knew what Anton was saying.

“I should have called.”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” Tommy said. Anton sighed and finally set the pen down, standing as he did so. Tommy tried not to feel so uncomfortable by the silence, but it wasn’t easy. Anton walked over and met his eyes.

“Call next time,” Anton instructed.

“There won’t be…” Tommy tried to argue and Anton’s frown turned to an annoyed, if affectionate smile.

“There’s always a next time with you,” he said. “Tell me next time.”

Tommy nodded. “I will.”

“Good,” Anton said. “The dig is going fine, I’m assuming you’ll be here for the rest of it. Is there anything else you need to know?”

“Will you marry me?” Tommy asked.

He had to give Anton credit. He’d never seen someone fall to the ground in shock while not completely losing their composure. “Thomas Oliver!” Catalina Fernandez scolded him while her husband, Jorge, just snickered. She was helping Anton to his seat. 

“You were eavesdropping,” Tommy informed her. She gave him a dirty look.

“Easy, Doctor Mercer,” she said gently. “Jorge! Stop laughing!” 

Trent looked in and grinned at Tommy. When his mother’s back was turned, he leaned in toward the former Ranger. “Can I be a groomsman?”

Memories swirled through Tommy’s head. He’d always thought Jason would be his best man that Zack and Billy would stand next to him, that Rocky would be joking around while Adam tried to contain him, that the girls would be teasing him and that someone, probably Rocky, would joke about Anton not being a Pink. That wasn’t going to happen now and he swallowed it down and forced a smile. “You bet,” he said and Trent grinned before giving a quiet cheer. Tommy’s smile dampened, but was more genuine. It was time to start over.

***

Tommy leaned back in his chair, nursing the beer that Hayley had given him. He was going to switch over to soda soon if for no other reason than so Trent wasn’t the only one drinking the non-alcoholic drinks. Not that the kid minded since he was just happy to be involved. He almost missed Hayley taking a place beside him as they leaned back. “I thought you swore off alcohol after I got back,” Tommy teased her.

“It’s a party. I’m enjoying myself,” she answered. He grinned and they sat there for a minute before she spoke up.

“Are you going to be okay?” She asked. “I know this isn’t exactly what you wanted.”

Tommy sighed. “I would have liked for them to be here, but we can’t. Seeing Jason proved that,” he said. “It hurt.”

“Like your feelings or…?”

“Physically,” he answered. “And worse than last time. Billy thinks it has to do with using Zeo during the last fight since I fought with Jason while I was Zeo. All I know is anyone who I was a Ranger with gives off an energy that literally hurts. I pushed through it for Jason, but having all of them here? It would probably kill me.”

“Then we’ll take plenty of pictures and send it to them. We’ll even video tape it,” she promised. “And we’ll try to figure it out.”

“It could take years,” he warned her.

“I like a challenge,” she answered. He nodded and the two clinked their bottles together before finishing them off. “But today is your bachelor party. So enjoy yourself, huh?”

Tommy nodded and grinned. “So, you want me to get karaoke set up?” He teased. Hayley looked seriously at him.

“I thought you wanted to live to your wedding day.”

He burst out laughing. “Hey Trent! I’ll give you ten dollars if you find me a karaoke bar!”

“Dr. Mercer already promised me twenty if I didn’t,” Trent answered. “Sorry, Tommy.”

Tommy waved it off as if it were nothing. “That’s okay,” he promised. “Let’s find out where Hayley hid the candy we were eating earlier.”

Trent’s eyes lit up and Tommy grinned. Catalina frowned. “Thomas! Trent! Don’t you two dare!”

“Let them have some fun,” Jorge said easily as he looked at the younger man and his son. “She hid it behind the couch.”

“Jorge!” Hayley and Catalina called out together, but it was too late. As Tommy tossed a third candy bar to Trent, he couldn’t help but smile. It might not have been what he always thought it would be, but he was pretty sure he could live with how it actually was. He’d marry Anton, even if it wasn’t quite legal, and that would be everything he could ask for.


	2. Embracing Imperfections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Being married is full of unpredictability.

“So, how’s marriage?” Tommy smiled as he held the phone against his ear and looked over his thesis for a 42nd time. He knew it was mostly jitters at this point, but it did help him focus.

“About like I expected, Kim,” he answered. “Lots of white, green, and red. A little pink, yellow, blue and black.”

“Aww! What color of pink?” She asked and he held back a chuckle.

“We went with a dinosaur theme,” he told her. “And Trent added some flowers to make it look more wedding-like. So, I had a pink pterodactyl with pink flowers and yes, they were Kat and your color of pink.”

“I like Trent.”

“You’ve never met him.”

“He did my job for me. One day, you need to send him out to meet us,” she instructed.

“He’s not mine, Kim!” Tommy said. “It’s not like I’m hiding him.”

“Pictures?”

“Done,” he said with a sigh. There was a pause before he continued. “I wish you all could have been there.”

“We would have. In a heartbeat,” she assured him. “Hayley is sending the video of the wedding, everything she could get, and we’re going to get together and watch it.”

“Even Billy?” Tommy asked in amusement. Kim sighed.

“It took us threatening to go to Aquitar, but yes, even Billy. He was going to watch it on his own, Tommy!” She growled. Tommy would have been worried if it had been directed in his direction. Fortunately, it wasn’t.

“Did you try telling him that I can wait?” Tommy asked. “Because he hardly ever returns my phone calls.”

“Oh Tommy,” Kim said sympathetically which told Tommy that he wasn’t hiding the frustration as much as he thought he was. “He still feels guilty.”

“It wasn’t his fault. Which I’ve told him,” Tommy said. “I even tried to use the leader tone.”

To her credit, Kim managed to mostly stifle her laughter. “How did that work?”

“Not even a blink. It works on Tanya,” he muttered.

“Tanya always wanted your approval,” she reminded him. “And it doesn’t work that well.”

“It helps that I don’t try to use it. Adam just gives me the same look Billy does, Rocky ‘lost’ his morpher during the Moon mission so that he wouldn’t end up hurting me, Aisha actually laughs, you just continue on, and Kat just politely smiles and changes the subject,” he said. Kim didn’t bother to fight the smile this time.

“Well, I can’t speak for the rest of them, but for Billy and I, Jason is our leader. You’re our sixth,” she said. “And the others might pretend to try to shrug it off, but I promise: It gets them thinking.”

“How do you know?” He asked.

“Because of how we all react to Jason,” she answered. “Don’t worry. We’re getting Billy back to Earth for a bit and then he can finish working on a cure.”

“Thanks, Kim,” he said, looking over his shoulder to see Anton coming. “I have to go.”

“I need to call Hayley anyway and get the rest of the dirt on your wedding,” she said. He glared at the phone. “Talk to you later! Miss you!”

She hung up before he could reply, leaving him to smile sadly and finish with “I miss you too.” He felt the hand on his shoulder and looked up to see Anton looking at him concerned. He shook his head and Anton nodded, but the hand didn’t leave his shoulder. One of the things that Anton wasn’t the best with was touch, something that Tommy needed. That said, both of them had found a compromise and Tommy smiled at the gesture.

“We should probably look over everything again,” Tommy said, trying to collect himself.

“It can wait,” Anton answered. “Let me take you out to dinner.”

“We don’t have a reservation,” Tommy reminded him.

“Then we’ll go somewhere that doesn’t need one,” Anton answered. Tommy just smiled and nodded, letting Anton lead. After all, it would take Anton until they got to the car to remember that he didn’t actually know any place like that and Tommy would take over. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked.

***

Tommy looked over to see Anton set his jacket down, rubbing his left shoulder. Sander, the butler, quietly picked it up to put it away as Tommy headed over to Anton’s side, wrapping his arms around him. Anton leaned into the touch with no complaint and both of them headed back to the couch. “You look exhausted,” Tommy informed him.

“It was a long day,” he admitted. “And while I have a decent intern, I’m afraid that he sometimes puts his own ambition above doing what needs to be done.”

Tommy gave him a sheepish smile. “Smitty will work out,” Tommy said confidently. “He just needs to find his balance.”

“Mmm,” Anton answered noncommittally. “Hopefully soon. How was your day?”

“Long,” Tommy admitted. “And I still have a little homework left to do.”

“I shouldn’t keep you from it,” Anton told him and Tommy shook his head.

“Can you for a little bit? I feel like I never get to see you,” he said. “Between your work and my schooling…”

Anton nodded. “Of course,” he said, leaning in to kiss his boyfriend. All of the exhaustion washed way and left them both feeling a little rejuvenated. Their problems, for now, could wait.

***

“I’m going to assume there’s a good reason why you’re lying on my floor at 3 in the afternoon muttering about how ‘Everything is wrong’ and until you’re ready to tell me, I’m getting a coke,” Hayley informed him. She looked over to see Trent and blinked before sighing. “I’m assuming that there’s a reason why Trent is in my kitchen doing his homework too.”

“I had to drive him,” Trent answered helpfully. Hayley looked at him.

“I thought you only had your permit,” she said. Trent laughed.

“He’s 25,” he answered. “And he probably shouldn’t have been driving.”

Hayley looked upward in a silent curse before getting her soda. Usually, it wouldn’t be silent because she’d swear at the Power and specifically Zordon since it was more of a name and she figured he wouldn’t mind. Plus, when Tommy got like this, it was usually Sixth behavior and that was Zordon’s fault. Or Rita’s. One of the two. “Do you know what happened?”

“He and Doctor Mercer got into a fight,” Trent answered, continuing what he was doing. “About the super secret project we’re not supposed to know about.”

“We?” Hayley asked, wondering how much Trent actually knew.

“Mom, Dad, and I,” he answered. “We don’t know too much, but I do know that it’s something important and no one else is supposed to know that much. Mom and Dad are trying to calm Doctor Mercer down.”

“Thank you, Trent. Tommy! Stop moping on the floor!” She scolded. “What were you fighting over anyway?”

“He wants me to work on it less until I get my PhD!” He snapped. “I’ve almost got it!”

“Huh. Good to know. Talking to your husband gets you to do what I want,” Hayley said, moving aside some of Trent’s paperwork and sitting down. Tommy’s head shot up, a look of betrayal on it.

“Hayley!”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that there’s only so much I can do for the past two months,” she said calmly, looking at Trent expectedly. The kid shrugged.

“She has,” he agreed. Tommy tried to give Trent a wounded look, but the kid wouldn’t even look up at him. He sighed.

“Hayley…”

“You need to focus, Tommy,” she said. “Otherwise, there’s going to be a mistake. And we’re not ready.”

He could hear her coded message loud and clear as he sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But the minute I get my degree…”

“Is the minute I’ll stop nagging you. Now, do your homework,” she said.

“What about yours?” He asked and she rolled her eyes. Trent snickered. “What?”

“Hayley graduated last term,” Trent reminded him. “You threw her a party.”

He paused and groaned. Hayley headed over, pulled him into a quick hug, and sat him down. “And this is why you need to slow down. Also, call Anton and tell him you’re sorry.”

“But…”

“Now Tommy.”

“Yes, Mom.”

“Is it really a good idea to anger me right now?” She asked. Trent did look up from his work and shook his head vigorously. Tommy looked back at her.

“No.” She looked pleased by the answer and left him alone, leaving Tommy to sulk. Trent reached over and patted his arm.

“She took away my art supplies too,” he offered. Tommy nodded in solidarity.

“She’s bossy.”

“Yeah,” Trent said. “But she also stocked up on cookies.”

Tommy paused, headed over and found them, bringing them back to the table for them to share. “Revenge,” he told the younger boy. Trent grinned.

“Revenge.”

***

Tommy relaxed against the couch. After the fiasco at Hayley’s house, Anton and he had agreed on starting a schedule so that they weren’t just guessing anymore. For Tommy, it had made his life a little easier and a lot more enjoyable at that point. He thought about heading to the fridge to grab a beer when he door rang. He sighed, but picked himself up and headed toward it. He knew that he should probably let Sander do his job, but he still didn’t have the hang of having a butler. He opened the door to find Trent shaking and in tears. “Trent?”

Trent looked at him and flung himself into Tommy’s arms. Years of being a Ranger allowed him to catch the kid instead of falling over. He looked into Trent’s eyes and saw the panic. “Trent? What?” He looked outside to see no one following him in, though he did see the Fernadezes’ jeep outside. “How did you get here?”

“Master Thomas?” Tommy turned and looked at Sander. “Sorry, Sir, but Master Anton is on the phone for you.”

He gently took the phone, fumbling a bit as he did so. “Anton?”

“Tommy? Is Trent with you?” The edged panic in Anton’s voice pushed the rest of Tommy’s Ranger instincts to the fold.

“I’ve got him right here. Anton? What’s going on?” Tommy asked.

“There was an accident,” Anton answered, his voice less panicked though Tommy could hear the pain. “Catalina and Jorge were involved…”

“Are they okay? Should I get Trent to the hospital?” Tommy asked, managing to look the young man over for injuries and juggle the phone. There was silent for a minute and Tommy stopped what he was doing. “They’re not at the hospital are they?”

“No,” Anton answered and Tommy closed his eyes. “I need to finish up with the police. Trent’s going to be staying with us tonight.”

“He can stay as long as he needs,” Tommy insisted. There was another bit of silence.

“I’m glad we agree,” came the response. “I’ll see you when I get home.”

The phone clicked and Tommy looked at Trent. He didn’t say another word as he held him, knowing that nothing else he could say would make up for it. For the first time in a long time, he felt the weight of his old coin in his pocket and he knew for a fact that he couldn’t make this right for Trent. He could, however, maybe make it bearable.


	3. Finding Home and Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not what anyone expected, but they're determined to make it work.

The next couple of weeks really wore on all of them as so many things needed to be done. Anton was busy with the lawyers to try to keep Trent from having to spend too much time in foster homes while Hayley was trying to plan the funeral, in between tears, so that Trent wouldn’t have to worry about it. Tommy was trying to keep up his grades and trying to do the shopping for a room, at least a bed and the like, for Trent to stay in once Anton pulled it off. It was after Day 12 that he was feeling rugged, tired, and a little scared which is why he was jumpy when his phone rang. “Hello?”

“You’ll be fine.” Tommy blinked at the caller, pulled the phone from his ear, and then listened again.

“Uh… Justin?” He asked. He could almost feel the teen rolling his eyes.

“Yes, Tommy. It’s Justin,” he said. “You’re going to do fine with Trent.”

“How do you…?”

“Kim talked to Kat. Kat talked to Zack. Zack talked to Jason. Jason called me,” he said. “And no, I’m not mad you didn’t call.”

“I’ve just been…”

“Busy trying to adopt a son?” Justin asked in slight amusement. “We noticed.”

Tommy felt more than a little sheepish. “Look, Justin, I messed up with…”

“You were 18,” Justin said. “Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t right, but you spent half of the year after Zordon died sending me things that I’m pretty sure you couldn’t afford and it was worse when you met Trent. We’ve been fine for years.”

“But Justin…”

“You will be fine,” Justin said, cutting him off. “You’re great with him and you and I both know that he needs someone right now. Just remember that he still remembers his parents, try to set some boundaries, and don’t hide the family secret.”

“Wait, what?” Tommy asked. Justin sighed again.

“You’re not good at hiding things and if you let him in, then you won’t have any secrets from him. Trust me. You don’t want to hide anything from him. I know that Kim gave you the same speech with Anton,” he said. Tommy smiled a bit at that memory. “The point is, you’re going to do fine. All of that stuff you feel guilty for with me? Don’t do it with him.”

“You’re making it sound easy,” Tommy said.

“Well, I’m not the one taking in an emotional power keg that’s going to explode at some point,” Justin said cheerfully.

“Not helping, Justin,” he said in annoyance. He could almost see the smirk on the younger man’s face.

“Then my job here is done,” he said happily. “Jason said I should boost you up and then bring you back down.”

“I’m so glad he decided to be a Big Brother for you,” Tommy muttered. Justin just laughed.

“Seriously, Tommy. You’ll be fine,” he promised. “I’ve got to go…”

“Thanks, Justin,” Tommy said.

“Anytime,” Justin assured him before hanging up. Tommy leaned back a bit and looked at the half empty room. There wasn’t much there, but with a little luck, Trent would manage to fix that soon.

***

Tommy was right. It didn’t take much longer and Anton pulled it off with a certain amount of grace. The car was silent when they picked him up. They’d seen him for the funeral, which Hayley had done an amazing job with, but the state had insisted on putting him in a foster home until the paperwork was done. Anton paid for the funeral and set aside Trent’s parents’ money for the boy when he got old enough. It wasn’t any better for the first couple of days once they got him home. He was quiet, if polite as if he was afraid that they wouldn’t let him stay if he screwed up. Hayley had become a second permanent feature. “Hayley?” Anton asked after the third day she’d been there. “Would you like to just get a room?”

“Hmm?” She asked, looking up from what she was doing. He sighed.

“It’s not that Tom and I don’t appreciate you being here, but perhaps you should go grab some more changes of clothes?” He suggested, raising an eyebrow. She paused for a minute to calculate. “Three days.”

“Huh?”

“It’s been three days,” he said gently. He turned and looked to the living room. “Tom? Maybe you should help your best friend move into a spare bedroom so she stops feeling like she needs to sleep on the couch?”

“Is that you’re subtle way of saying ‘leave Trent alone and go outside’?” Tommy asked sardonically. Anton looked at Hayley with a slight smile.

“And you insisted he couldn’t be taught,” he said deadpan.

“We’ll pick up your wine on the way back,” she answered. They shared a smile as she nodded. “Okay, I’ll get some more clothes. Are you sure it’s not too much trouble?”

“I think I have the room,” he responded.

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Tommy said, brushing it off before turning to the more important part of the whole thing. “You two bet on me?”

“We’re always betting on you,” Hayley said. Anton snorted.

“I’m surprised you haven’t noticed. Jorge and Catalina would get in on it half the time. Even Trent once in a while,” he answered.

“Not that you’d let him pay up properly,” Hayley accused.

“Several of the guestrooms would disagree with you. His work compliments the rest of the artwork,” Anton answered.

“That explains a lot,” Tommy said with a sigh. “Come on, Hayley. Anton?”

“I will try to see if he’s ready to come out,” he promised, waiting until they had left and shaking his head before heading off to find Trent. He headed down the hall, seeing that the door to the boy’s bedroom was open and he blinked in surprise. He headed down the hall and looked through them. He found Trent in one of the guestroom, staring at the walls.

“You kept them?” Trent’s voice surprised him, but Anton was a master of hiding it. Instead, he pushed back the emotion and nodded.

“I told you that I had a use for them,” he said instead, hands behind his back. Tommy was the emotional one after all. It was best to let him fuss. “Is your room satisfactory?”

“It’s great,” Trent said quickly and Anton inwardly sighed.

“You do realize that this is your home, right?” Anton asked. “The adoption papers were signed.”

“I remember.”

“Good,” Anton said. “So know that it’s permanent. Tom and I are your legal guardians. They will not take you away. We will not throw you out. And Hayley would kill us both if we tried.”

Trent managed a small smile at that. “Mom and Dad would have liked that.”

Anton nodded. They were both silent for a moment, just staring at the painting. “When you’re ready, we can prepare your room for you.”

Trent nodded. Anton took that as a success. “What about school?”

“We can talk about that when you’re ready. Until then, I’m sure that Hayley can assist you,” he assured him. “Trent, we’ll make this work.”

“Thank you, sir,” he said. Anton nodded.

“You’re welcome,” he answered before turning and pausing in the doorway. “Let Sander know if you decide to go out. And be back before 9.”

“Yes, sir,” he said. Anton finished heading out the door. It was a start.

***

“Standing in his doorway isn’t going to fix things, Tommy,” Hayley informed him as they walked up toward her apartment. He turned and glared at her. “He’ll come out when he’d ready.”

“Says the woman who doesn’t leave,” he snarked. She matched his glare, but didn’t answer.

“We’re driving Anton insane,” Hayley said. Tommy looked over at her in surprise. “You didn’t notice?”

“No.”

“Sometimes, you really are clueless,” she told him, but dropped it. The two headed into her apartment and packed a bag with far more clothes than she’d been wearing. Tommy looked at one of the shirts for a bit before packing it.

“I’m starting to wonder if this was a good idea,” he admitted. She looked over at him in surprise. “He’s not responding, Hayley.”

“He just lost his parents, Tommy. Give him some time,” she said. “He’ll get there.”

“What if something happens?” He asked.

“Like?” She asked with more than a little annoyance.

“Like the fight against evil comes to us. Something goes wrong with the experiments. I go evil…” He said.

“You’re not going to go evil, Tommy,” she said, pulling him into a hug.

“It’s happened twice,” he reminded her.

“Then I will grab Anton and Trent and floor it to Angel Grove. Will that work?” She asked. “But it will be fine. Stop worrying. Don’t make me call Jason.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Or Kim.”

“Traitor.”

“I prefer well-armed,” she said. “We’ll handle anything that happens. Trust me, Jorge and Catalina would have wanted this.”

“How can you be so sure?” He asked her, looking skeptical. She rolled her eyes.

“Because I know everything. And I say you’re going to be great.”

“Justin said I should tell him the truth about me being a Power Ranger,” he told her.

“Listen to Justin.”

“But…”

“Listen to Justin,” Hayley repeated, giving him a stern look. Tommy nodded as he helped her finish packing. They set it all in the car and headed back as Tommy leaned back as he drove and Hayley took a quick nap. He hoped his friends were right, but he was pretty sure that arguing with them would fix nothing and he just had to hope that he’d get through to Trent.


	4. Awe and Wonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy lets Trent in on the Family Secret.

“You just wanted me out of my room,” Trent said, folding his arms. Tommy sighed and silently asked the Power for some patience.

“I know it’s a trek,” Tommy said. “But it’s important.”

“And there wasn’t an easier way to tell me the important thing?” Trent asked sardonically. Tommy forced back another sigh and silently cursed out Andros the second time. He still thought it would be great if he could have shown the kid a real spaceship, let him meet some Rangers, and then mentioned it. Not to mention he wanted off planet for a bit anyway, but Andros had informed him that they were busy at the moment. Tommy was pretty sure the man was exaggerating. They couldn’t have been than busy.

“There was, but this is better,” Tommy insisted. More likely, he was feeling homesick, but he was hoping to make Trent understand his past as well as understand that he understood what it was like to lose someone you loved. So when they came up on the fallen Command Center, he didn’t try to hide the pain it gave him. Trent looked confused.

“We came all the way here for this?” He asked. Tommy nodded. “Why?”

“When I was younger,” Tommy explained. “I moved to Angel Grove. I met some people, started to get situated, but it was about ten years ago.”

“Ten years ago?” Trent asked. Tommy let him do the math in his head. The boy’s eyes widened. “Did you lose someone when that Rina woman attacked?”

“Rita. Her name was Rita,” Tommy said with a sigh. “And not quite. She’d been fighting the five Power Rangers. She wanted to fight fire with fire.”

“So, another Ranger against the others?” Trent asked. Tommy had to admit that the kid was doing pretty well at this, but then again he’d been with his parents during their digs and not everything they’d found was human made. Anton was just good at lying about it. Kim had been more than right at telling his husband what he’d been since Power speaks to Power and Anton insisted that they found more alien artifacts when Tommy was around. “We were always told that the first Power Rangers were aliens. That the group in Angel Grove was after the aliens died and needed someone to pass their powers onto.”

“That would be Zack and Justin being ‘creative’ and convincing T.J. to say it,” Tommy said with a sigh. “In order to protect Rangers before that, you insist they’re dead now.”

“They’re not dead then?” Trent asked and Tommy shook his head.

“No,” he said.

“You might want to tell them that they ripped off Green Lantern’s origin story,” Trent said seriously. Tommy laughed.

“They know. Kim said they should have gone with Wonder Woman’s origin. She liked the idea of the Power Rangers forming from clay and being given their powers by dinosaur gods. Jason muttered that we should have gone with Superman’s route and had them been aliens raised on Earth. Then the others looked into other superheroes and the whole idea was a mess.”

“What was your idea?” Trent asked, looking at his adoptive father. Tommy smiled a bit.

“I didn’t have one,” he admitted. “I was fighting just to stay awake.”

Trent was quiet for a minute. “Which one were you?”

“Green,” he answered. “Then white. And red for a little while.”

“Okay, what really happened?”

“Some astronauts let Rita out of her prison that she’d been in for 10,000 years and she decided to destroy Earth. Her archnemesis, an Eltarian in a time warp named Zordon, didn’t like that so he reached out for help. He found Jason, Kim, Trini, Zack, and Billy. He gave them each a morpher and sent them out to fight Rita.”

“So, they chose Green Lantern’s backstory because it was close to the truth?”

“Yep,” Tommy answered. “After they won several times, she brought out the green morpher and forced it to me. Eventually, after I tried to kill them a few times, they found a way to break Rita’s magic and I fought with them for a while, but she used a green candle and eventually I couldn’t morph anymore. So, I left for a while until Zordon told me that he had a surprise for me and created the White Ranger powers. Jason, Trini, and Zack had to go to the Peace Conference, but they left Aisha, Adam, and Rocky with Kim, Billy, and I. We fought together until Kim left to live out her dream as a gymnast. Kat, who Rita had been using, switched sides and joined us. Then everything changed and we needed to have the Zeo Powers, but there was only five and Billy hadn’t been able to go after them. He made sure that Tanya kept the yellow Zeo crystal and stayed as our tech before going to Aquitar. We lost Rocky a little while after because he hurt his back and got Justin in his place. Then we passed everything off to T.J.’s team who were both Turbo with Justin and Astro with Andros and Zhane.”

“No wonder no one figured it out,” Trent said. “Unless they really knew you, that has to confuse anyone.”

Tommy smiled at that before his smile disappeared. “When the Battle of Angel Grove happened, none of us were there. We’d split up. We had a little warning before everything happens. A little niggle that something big was about to happen. Jason promised to try to get everyone in one place. We’d both taken on each other’s role, but Jason is a leader. It’s what he does. But Billy was off planet on Aquitar. So, I went to him so that he would have a member of the team with him. We hadn’t split up on the best of terms and the possible end of the world seemed like a good time to try to make up.”

Tommy was quiet for a minute before he continued. “Billy disagreed and the two of us fought over it a bit. It didn’t help that I wanted him to come home with me and he wanted to stay there. We stopped fighting when Aquitar was attacked. The Aquitian Rangers were able to handle most of it, but there was a glitch in their part of the Power when some of Divatox’s minions managed to get through. I morphed to hold them off, but one of them managed to get past me. Billy managed to destroy it, but not before it messed with the Aquitian’s portion of the Grid and told me their base would explode from the Power getting out which meant the Aquitian Rangers would lose their powers. So, I shoved my wrist in to try to buy them some more time, giving them the Zeo Powers to hold them everything stable. Billy thinks I probably would have died if Zordon hadn’t first. He sent a wave through the galaxy which destroyed all evil, transforming a few into a good form and just destroying the rest. Aquitar’s power was healed, but…”

He looked down at his bare wrist, the pain still crawling through his mind as he sat there. Trent was silent as Tommy tried to form the words. It wasn’t something they’d talked about in a long time. Finally, he managed to start talking again. “Zordon died. I felt it, we all felt it. He was like a second father to me, Trent. He was always there for my teen years. Losing him hurt. But then we found out that he managed to save my life, but the accident shifted something and being around anyone who I had fought with before hurt. If I try it for too long, it could kill me.”

“You couldn’t mourn with your friends?” Trent asked. Tommy shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry too,” Tommy told him as Trent finally broke down. Tommy pulled the kid to him and let him cry as he felt tears of his own fall down his face. Yes, it hurt, but at least they didn’t have to mourn alone. And now, he knew that he could enlist the others without it being so weird for Trent which was something he drastically needed to do.

***

“So, your Big Brother was the first Red Ranger?” Trent asked as Justin tossed him a cookie. Justin just grinned.

“Yep!” He answered. “We’re all one big family, but he decided to make it official to make it easier on all of us. So, Tommy as a dad. What’s that like?”

“We’re still working it out. I don’t think Anton and he were thinking about having kids so soon so they’re still trying to figure out what they’re doing. Hayley and I think it’s great. She usually puts in a movie when they start arguing and tells me how all of the special effects work. Anton isn’t the most emotional guy, but he’s trying and Tommy tends to be too much of a mother hen,” he explained. Justin just laughed. “But they’re really trying. They’ve even let me see what they’re working on.”

“How’s that going?”

“Pretty good. I’m hoping for a pet dinosaur at some point. Like a Apatosaurus or a Elasmosaurus. Or a Tupuxuara! That would be great,” he said hopefully. Justin laughed. “Mom used to show me the bones and Tupuxuara was amazing.”

“Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll get a Pteradacty or something,” he said. “Tommy has some good memories of those.”

“I noticed at the wedding,” Trent admitted. “Which is why I brought it up to Anton.”

“Good idea,” Justin answered. “If you guys manage it, let Tommy know I could use a biocyberntetic microraptor, okay?”

“I’ll mention it,” Trent said with a grin.

“You seem to be doing a lot better,” Justin said honestly. “You going to be okay?”

“How long did it take before you got over your mom dying?”

There was a pause and Justin smiled. “A while. But you’ll make it. Just keep holding on.”

Trent nodded.

***

Trent crashed to the ground with a grunt. He reached back to feel his head, but he was pretty sure he was okay. He glanced to his right as Anton looked up from his paperwork to give an amused look toward his son. “I’m nearly certain that you’re supposed to stay standing, Trent.”

Trent glared at him. “If you’d help me, we could take him down,” Trent said.

“You wanted to learn how to spar. That’s Tom’s field, not mine,” Anton said. “It would be like asking Hayley to tend to my plants.”

“You overwater three plants and no one lets you forget it,” Hayley grumbled as she headed over, handing a water to Anton as she sat next to him. “Try centering.”

“What does that mean?” Trent asked. “And how do I do that?”

“Beats me. I overheard Jason telling one of his students to do it,” she answered. Tommy rolled his eyes and gave a look toward his husband and best friend.

“If you two aren’t going to help, let me teach him,” he said. “Here Trent, try standing like this. That way you’re less likely to trip.”

Trent copied the movement and followed Tommy’s example. He’d been taught how to do it, but he still needed to learn how to use it to defend himself. He caught Anton’s amused smile and Hayley trying to focus on other things and tried to ignore it. It wasn’t like he’d meant to trip and fall. Tommy seemed to catch the frown. “Hey, you’re still learning. And Hayley and Anton stay on the science side of things for a reason.”

That seemed to get their attention as both of them looked up. Anton glanced at Hayley who nodded and looked at Trent. “Get him!”

Trent dove at his father, knocking Tommy backward in surprise as Hayley rushed over to help. Anton calmly walked over to where Tommy’s head was and set a finger on it. “You were saying?”

“Say you give up!” Hayley said in amusement. Tommy rolled his eyes.

“I give up,” he grumbled as they let him go. Trent grinned.

“See? That wasn’t so hard, Dad,” he said as he dusted himself off and looked back at the others who were still staring. “I thought maybe it would be okay if…”

He didn’t get to finish as Tommy pulled him into a hug and Hayley smiled at him. “We were hoping you would choose to,” Anton said softly. “But Jorge…”

“Is my Papa. He always will be. But that doesn’t mean you guys aren’t my dads,” he said. “I just needed time.”

“If you need more,” Anton started, but Trent shook his head. “Tommy, let him go. You’re smothering him.”

Tommy did and turned to say something to Anton, but the other man ignored him, pulling Trent to him instead. Tommy blinked as it was a short but solid hug before letting him go and nodding. Hayley was still just smiling as she watched.


	5. Forever

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nothing lasts forever. Not even the things you wish would.

“Why can’t I come with you guys to Dinosaur Island?” Trent asked as he shoveled another bite of food into his mouth. “Hayley is still home schooling me…”

“Hayley doesn’t go to Dinosaur Island because I was smart enough to learn from Jurassic Park,” Hayley interrupted. “Unlike Hammond and Grant here.”

“Hammond wasn’t involved with the science part of it,” Anton informed her as if that was the only wrong thing she’d mentioned. “I am.”

“Jurassic Park was a movie, Hayley,” Tommy told her for the umpteenth time which she promptly ignored. He turned to Trent. “But you need to stay here so you don’t get behind.”

“Will you bring me back a dinosaur yet?” He asked.

“I don’t care what you and Justin think, you’re not getting pet dinosaurs,” Tommy said. The minute his back was turned, Anton gave him a quick wink and Trent tried not to grin. Hayley leaned in toward Anton.

“I’m not cleaning up after it,” she informed him.

“I have a staff for that,” he reminded her. She smirked.

“Sander said he’ll quit first,” she informed him.

“Then he can be in charge of assigning someone else to take care of it,” he assured her.

“Tommy’s going to kill you,” she said.

“Tommy still owes me for flying to the moon, without letting me know, to fight the remnants of a supposedly destroyed empire,” Anton said dryly. “Here. Why don’t you do me a favor?”

“What sort of favor?” She asked suspiciously.

“We need get more ingrained into Reefside in case something comes up. Since the Power has a horrific habit of choosing teens, I thought you might want to make that hang out you’ve mentioned,” he said. “Just call when you find a place and I’ll help you through the rest.”

“You’re not going to just do it yourself?” She teased. Anton straightened himself up a bit.

“I am perfectly capable of delegating,” he assured her. “Trent, please help Hayley with everything?”

Trent looked ready to refuse, but stopped himself and nodded. Anton smiled at patted his shoulder as he headed out. Trent looked at Hayley. “So, building shopping?”

“He just wants you to understand his world too,” she said. Trent nodded.

“That’s why I didn’t say no,” he said. “I don’t want to be scientist or a martial artist or a businessman. I want to be an artist.”

“They know, Trent,” Hayley assured him. “But right now, they’re worried that you’re going to get hurt in their worlds.”

“So, just treat all of this like self defense classes?”

“That’s what I do!” She said cheerfully. He laughed.

“Got it, Tía,” he answered.

***

Tommy looked at the screen curiously. “Anton? I think something’s off with the Tyrannodrones.”

Anton glanced over and shook his head. “I don’t believe it to be anything serious, Tom.”

“Are you sure?” He asked. This wasn’t his field of expertise. PhD or not, Anton was the brains behind everything. Tommy had been the Power expert which allowed them to figure out how to blend it. And they’d both left Hayley to figure out most of the tech stuff even if a lot of it had been built here. She’d just walked Tommy through everything she needed to. Anton just nodded and Tommy tried to calm down. His nerves were tighter than usual as they’d been back when he was a Ranger.

“Tom? Why don’t you go for a walk,” Anton suggested. Tommy thought about protesting, but he knew Anton’s suggestion meant that his agitation was distracting. Tommy just nodded and headed toward the door. Anton was probably right. A walk would probably calm him down. He headed off through the island and enjoyed the scenery, but that didn’t stop his nerves.

He paused and glanced back at the base when a huge spike of fear ran through him. His mind grasped and clung to it as he rushed toward the base as fast as he could. Memories rushed through his head. Monsters he’d defeated, the feeling right before the Incident, losing Zordon, and the most damning thing of all: the memory that recognized this specific feeling. It was the one he’d felt several times in his life. Something evil had come into the world.

He rushed back toward the base, screaming Anton’s name only to have one of the Tyrannodrones that was supposed to be unconscious rush him. He dodged it and kicked it into a wall, but more came. There was a shadow near the edge of the room. “Dr. Oliver…” It hissed. Tommy backed up a bit. They’d been making a lot of things, but he was pretty sure they hadn’t made this. “Where are the gems?”

The gems. Tommy knew he shouldn’t have left those alone. He looked at the creature and frowned, deciding to try to buy some time. “You know me and this base,” he said. “You should know where they are, Lizard-Face.”

It was a childish insult. He was rusty. Still, it did the job he needed it to. “I am Mesagog,” it roared. He roared. Tommy was pretty sure it was male. Of course, he wasn’t about to get closer to see if he was right and he only had a voice to go on, but it was a decent guess.

“Well, Mesagog,” Tommy said. “Duck.”

He kicked one of the Tyrannodrones into the creature and bolted, heading toward where the gems were. He still didn’t see Anton anywhere. The self-destruct started and Tommy realized he was out of time and grabbed the box, hoping that Anton was out near the beach. They’d agreed that both of them would be able to destroy everything in case something happened, something that Tommy had put in place due to his history. He grimaced. Anton had probably thought that Tommy was still in the woods. With everything happening so fast, he raced to the edge and looked down. Hoping that Anton had made it to the boat and realizing that the Tyrannodrones were following him, he waited and finally jumped into the water. His last thoughts were both that he hoped his husband had made it to the boat during the distraction and that Trent would forgive him for dying.

***

Justin just held Trent to him as the other slept on his shoulder. He was just glad that Trent was able to sleep. He glanced over to see Hayley staring at the phone as if it would ring faster if she glared at it. He didn’t bother to try to stop her. Instead he just tried to adjust himself to have a better hold. He’d volunteered to come help Trent and Hayley while they others had ran to join the search for Tommy and Anton. It hasn’t even been a full year since he lost his parents. He shouldn’t lose his dads on top of it.

“I didn’t think it would be this,” Hayley said, knocking Justin out of his own thoughts. She hadn’t said anything in over an hour. He looked at her. “It was an island full of proto-dinosaurs. I thought they’d rampage or something. I didn’t think we’d lose them because it exploded.”

Justin didn’t answer her. She wasn’t looking for an answer from him. She was looking for a call from one from her best friends who were lost or from any other Ranger that had found them. He thought about telling her that it would be okay, but the words felt dead in his mouth after saying them to Trent so many times. “They might not be dead.”

Hayley stayed silent and just went back to silently willing the phone to ring. When it did shortly after, Justin felt relieved not only for any news but for the distraction. Hayley answered it a bit roughly. “Hello? Oh thank God. And Anton? I see. Yeah. I’ll let Trent and Justin know.”

She hung up the phone. “We need to get to the Aquabase. Lightspeed found Tommy.”

Justin shook Trent to get him up as he looked at her. “What about Anton?”

“They’re still looking,” she answered. Justin nodded.

“Come on, Trent. We need to go check on your dad,” Justin urged which got Trent up quicker. Justin glanced at Hayley and then at the phone, hearing the words behind what she was saying. It had taken this long for them to find Tommy and they still couldn’t find Anton because they hadn’t been together. There was a good chance that Tommy was surviving off of the Power alone and if that was true, they might not have found Anton because he hadn’t been able to make it as far as Tommy. Right now, however, they needed to get Trent to Tommy so that at least he could be with one dad. They’d accept surrender later.

***

“Dad?” Trent’s voice rang through Tommy’s head and he thanked the Power that the boy was okay. He wasn’t sure if he could move. It was only the Power itself that had made sure he’d made it. He still wasn’t sure how he’d managed it, but he’d find out later. He tried to ignore the pain running through him and squeezed the hand that Trent was holding. He wasn’t feeling reassured himself, but he knew that the boy needed it. He was trying to open his eyes, but he was having less luck with that. “Doctor! I think he’s waking up!”

“Thank the Power!” He heard a woman exclaim. “Tommy? Can you hear me?”

He forced his brain to work. “Dana?”

“That’s right,” she said gently. “We need to keep your eyes covered for now, okay? The blast of the explosion did a number on them.”

“Blind?”

“I’m not sure if it wasn’t as bad as I thought or if the Power healed you a bit, but they’ll be fine,” she answered. “You’ve been unconscious for the last couple of days. We found you in the ocean and had to pull that box away from you to check you over.”

She sounded a little annoyed by that, but Tommy could guess it scared her. He couldn’t blame her. He hadn’t been sure he was going to make either. His mind finally caught up with him. “How’s Anton?”

There was silence. Tommy’s heart clenched and Trent’s hand squeezed his again. “Tommy,” Dana said gently. “We did everything we could. I had to have Ryan and Joel drag Carter back so he didn’t fall asleep in the middle of the search because he didn’t want to give up. Taylor is still having Yellow Eagle look around. Your friends looked everywhere before we finally couldn’t look anymore and Cole asked the fish and dolphins for help. We just couldn’t find him.”

Tommy was silent as he took all of that in. He felt Trent lean into him and pulled his son into a hug. With that, he began to breakdown. He didn’t hear Dana shut the door, trying to give them both the time to grieve.


	6. Hiding Under the Covers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life is overrated. Under the covers is better.

“Dad?” Tommy sighed at Trent’s voice, but he still didn’t come out. He needed some time to deal with this and Hayley could take care of thing for a bit. For now, he was just going to stay where he was. “Dad? Hayley said you need to come out.”

He didn’t answer. Hayley had never married and then lost her spouse. She couldn’t know how he was feeling right now. She hadn’t lost anyone like that before. He winced at that as he realized that the person in the room with him, however, had. He lifted up the blankets he was under and looked at Trent. “Come here,” he said quietly. Trent headed out and climbed into the bed and under the covers.

“You told me when my parents died that I couldn’t hide forever,” Trent reminded him as he moved around to try to get comfortable. Tommy didn’t complain that he was shifting the blankets away from the perfect way Tommy had had them. Trent was more important.

“We’re not hiding forever,” Tommy said. “We’re hiding for now.”

There was silence for a minute before Trent spoke up again. “We found a place.”

“Huh?” Tommy asked.

“Dad asked Hayley to make her café so that we had a place to meet people,” he said. “He asked me to help her. We found a place.”

Tommy tried to figure out what that had to do with anything, but he couldn’t and sighed. “What’s that have to…”

“I agreed to do it to make him happy,” Trent said. “Because he wanted to show me stuff he liked doing. And he’s gone and he’ll never know that I did it. And he’ll never know that I liked listening to him when he was on the phone and getting things done or talking to other scientists or showing me his garden. I know he knows I loved him. After my parents died, I made sure to tell you guys that, but I’m not sure if he realized that I looked up to him even if I didn’t want to be him.”

Tommy pulled his son to him, unsure how to answer. He wasn’t sure if Anton knew either. After a minute, he decided on the truth. “I don’t know if he knew,” he said. “But I know it didn’t matter. He cared more that you loved him than if you shared his hobbies. Do you think he loved you?”

“Of course!” Trent answered.

“Then that’s what matters,” Tommy said, tracing the blanket. Trent paused and then did the same, matching Tommy’s smile as they did it. The shadow that darkened the light coming through startled them both.

“Trent! I told you to get him out of there, not join him!” Hayley rebuked. Tommy pulled the blanket up to look at her and saw the tell-tale cry marks. He instantly felt bad for his thoughts before and pulled her into the blanket fort with them before she could really protest. She sighed and went to work making sure all three of them were completely covered. “He’s listed as missing so we don’t have to worry about legal stuff for the moment.”

“Thanks, Hales,” Tommy said, kissing her cheek. She just squeezed his hand in response. “I don’t think I can handle that right now.”

“I know,” Hayley said. Her voice had started to shake and she tried to catch it. “He put everything into motion before…”

“Before,” Tommy said quickly, not about to let her say it. She wouldn’t be able to stop from crying and he wasn’t sure if Trent and he could take hearing it. She seemed to agree because she was just silent in response. 

“Tommy,” Hayley said. “If this Mesagog guy is out there, we need to prepare.”

“I know,” he assured her. 

“Not today?” Trent begged. Both of them turned to look at him. “Can we just stay here today?”

Tommy looked at Hayley who reached over and took Trent’s hand before nodding. Tommy pulled both of them to him and they were mostly quiet. Once in a while, one of the three would say something, but it was mostly just silence. Sander didn’t interrupt, but left food by the mountain of blankets and picked up the plates later without a word. Tomorrow, they would figure out what to do, but today they were going to forget the rest of the world. All that existed was under the blankets.


	7. Cafe and Coffee

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Moving on is hard because everything reminds you of the person you love. You just have to take it a day at a time.

Hayley stood back and stared at the empty building with her arms folded. Several contractors were already starting to work on what she wanted done with it, but she couldn’t enter it. As much as she’d been pushing Tommy and Trent to continue their lives, this was the last gift Anton had left her. It was like honoring a last request that you really wanted to do, but had a sense of finality about it. She didn’t appreciate the finality that it had and that scared her a bit. Not working on it wouldn’t bring him back, but she’d found over the years that logic didn’t stop feelings.

“Ma’am?” One of the workers called out and she turned to look at them. “We need you to make sure you’re happy with the blueprints.”

She nodded and headed over into the building to look things over. It was just the little things so far. It would get more massive from there and she knew it. She’d have to worry about paints and floors, how she wanted the bar to be, what the tables should look like, all of the things before actually running the business itself. She glanced at the blueprints as a tear fell onto one of the papers. She reached up to see that more were coming and the contractor looked worried. “I’m sorry,” she apologized. “It looks fine.”

“Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” she managed to gasp out and headed out the door to catch her breath, wrapping her arms around her. She tried to control her breathing and get herself back under control so that she could be the strong one. She needed to look at this for what it was: Starting over. She just needed to start things over.

***

Trent had never been to a public school in his life. His parents had homeschooled him which Hayley had easily taken over when they’d lost his parents in the accident. So, going from nothing to going to Reefside High was more than a little intimidating. He’d asked Justin about it considering that they were close in age only to have Justin gently tell him that he’d graduated high school a while ago and was in college so he probably wasn’t the best person to ask. Hayley and Tommy were dealing with their own stuff which meant that Justin had taken Trent for the day to visit his extremely excitable aunts and uncles.

Trent wasn’t as amazed by Storm Blaster anymore. He’d learned to drive in Storm Blaster thanks to Justin. Tommy hadn’t been pleased when he’d found out nor had Anton, but they’d agreed that they couldn’t ask for a safer car to help him. That said, he always enjoyed the bickering between Justin and the jeep, even if he could only hear one side of it. Justin broke off the newest argument about Justin’s love life or lack there of and looked at Trent. “It’ll be fine.”

“How many of them are there?” He asked, biting his lip.

“Billy won’t even be there,” Justin said.

“That’s not answering the question.”

“I think they’re cheating to get half of them back, but I don’t know where they would have gotten a transporter.”

“Still not answering, Justin.”

“I would have asked but…”

“Justin!”

“Nine,” he said with a sigh. “Not counting me.”

“Nine?!” Trent squeaked. “I changed my mind. Let’s go home.”

“So I have to deal with them not getting to meet you? Forget it,” Justin said. “They think they’ve been patient.”

“I haven’t been adopted that long,” he grumbled. “Why didn’t they just show up like you?”

“Because we all hurt your dad being near him and I’m closest in age,” he answered. “And Jason said I needed more friends.”

“Who do you have besides me?” Trent asked.

“Storm Blaster,” he said. Trent looked at him. “I didn’t say Jason wasn’t right. You try being the genius boy at school. I never got along with kids my own age and my other friends were all Power Rangers. And since you’re not much better, we have to visit the Family for help.”

Trent leaned back in the seat, less than pleased by the whole thing, but in agreement with Justin. The car stopped outside of a nice looking house and Justin jumped out of the jeep. The block was covered in cars which, to Trent’s amusement, were all more than likely Ranger colored. He felt a tap on his shoulder and Justin motioned for him to come inside. Trent quickly followed him as they headed toward the door and Justin didn’t bother knocking. “Jason? I’m home!”

Trent blinked and glared at his friend. “You didn’t say you lived here.”

“You didn’t ask,” Justin murmured back. Trent had seen photos and glanced over to see them talking on the computer enough times to recognize his father’s old friends. So, when Jason came out, he looked similar to the man in Tommy’s old pictures, but older. He gave Justin a solid grin and a quick clasp of the arm before looking over to see Trent.

“I made them stay in the other room,” he told Trent. Justin snickered. “I thought you might get overwhelmed.”

“Thank you, uh, Jason,” Trent said politely. He wondered how Jason had managed that with the more spirited members of his team. “But I should probably just face it.”

“If you get overwhelmed, just let Justin or I know and we’ll get you to one of the bedrooms,” Jason instructed. “If you need to get outside, that’s fine. No one should swarm you, but if you feel like everyone is a bit too close, just take a step back. Are you prone to panic attacks?”

“No, Sir,” Trent said and Jason nodded.

“Do you know that feeling of flight or fight?” Jason asked gently. Trent nodded. “It’s like that but worse. If you start to feel overwhelmed like that, get out of the situation and we’ll handle it from there. Are you ready?”

Trent nodded. A glance toward Justin told him it wasn’t a normal occurrence that everyone in the room was being quiet, but they were managing it. He could see some of the people were having trouble doing that, but he had to give Jason credit on managing to pull it off. The only other person he’d seen do that was Anton and he’d been able to fire the lot of them if he’d wanted. He finally gave a quick wave and Jason sat down.

“One at a time!” He called out. Justin glanced at Jason.

“And you’re expecting them to just decide who goes first?” He asked.

Jason snorted. “We picked numbers out of a hat.”

Trent finally managed to speak up. “Dad always talked about Power Rangers like there was organization and professionalism,” he said. “And you guys decided on numbers out of a hat?”

“I tried Choose a Number Between One and a Hundred, but apparently I always choose 64. Trying to use Who Has the Longest Straw was going to take too long. And none of us were on board with Rocky’s Lego idea,” Jason said, giving him former teammate an exasperated look. Justin kept quiet, but Trent had to know.

“Lego idea?” He asked, looking at the creator of the idea.

“You take everyone’s color, or their preferred colors if they have more than one. You put them in a bag and pull them out for the different orders,” he said.

“Don’t some of you share colors?” He asked. Rocky grinned.

“That’s when the stacking Legos contest starts,” he said. “Whoever can make the biggest tower without it falling over, wins!”

Trent blinked and Jason smiled to himself. “This is why we went with choosing numbers,” he said. 

“Why didn’t you go with who could make the most creative thing with Legos instead of how high you could get them?” Trent asked. Everyone in the room just stared, but Trent managed to ignore it. “Then you could have shown me what you made later.”

He was soft spoken he spoke up, but the room was silent enough that he felt like he was yelling. Finally Rocky burst out into laughter and Trent was worried he’d said something wrong. “I never thought of that,” he finally said. “You like playing with Legos?”

“I like art,” he offered, starting to feel like it was okay to open up. “Dad, uh, Anton Dad used to let me bet against him and Hayley for artwork. Mama and Papa used to say that it would teach me not to gamble if I lost enough times. Hayley said that betting that Da-, uh, Tommy Dad would do what we wanted was where I kept going wrong. I needed to bet against him if I wanted to win. Dad decorated the house with them.”

He had a soft smile on his face when he spoke and Rocky looked a little uncomfortable. “If you…”

“It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve lost parents before. It helps to talk about it.”

“Then you go right ahead and talk about it, Sweety,” Aisha said. He gave her a polite smile.

“Actually, I need your help,” he said. “I’ve never been to school and now I’m spending my last year at a public high school. Do you think you could tell me what it was like for you guys?”

Adam nodded, but looked a little sympathetic. “We were Power Ranger’s at the time,” he reminded him. “It might be different for you.”

“He’s Tommy’s son,” Zack called out. “It’s a matter of ‘when’ he becomes a Ranger. Not if.”

“Don’t tell that to Tommy,” Kim snapped. “He’ll be on the phone with me for hours complaining about you all conspiring against him!”

Trent smiled at the group and just let them banter as Jason handed him some coffee. He’d remind them soon enough, but he needed a sense of normalcy and, Power help him, this is what normalcy felt like to him.

***

Tommy looked over the papers that were scattered around the table. Letters from the school, plans for classes, worksheets created, all of it was mixed together and Tommy just had a headache looking at it. Granted, it had been easier for him to get everything together rather than concentrating on the death of his husband. He’d thrown himself into that and keeping an eye on Trent. He wanted to do what was best for Trent, but he wasn’t sure where to start. Sending him off with Justin had probably been the best decision he’d made lately and he wasn’t even sure if that had been a good plan in and of itself. He sighed and leaned back, just finally letting his mind wander for a bit.

At his right, apart from the rest of the papers, were the documents for Anton’s life. He’d left Tommy everything, of course, which had been difficult considering that California hadn’t had gay marriage at the time. He was trying to ignore they were there, but he couldn’t. “Coffee, Master Thomas?”

Tommy looked up to Sander holding out the freshly brewed coffee and took it. If he had anything to thank it was that Sander and the rest of the household staff had been very willing to help out in any way they could. Sander himself had been quietly making certain that the three of them ate, took the phone calls that Tommy couldn’t, and kept everything looking perfect. “Thank you.”

“I spoke with Mr. Smith,” Sander said. “He insisted that you take some more time off before you look things over.”

Tommy tried to hide the smile. “He did, huh?” He asked, knowing the butler could be persuasive when he needed to be.

“He did,” Sander answered. “No need to worry about it for now.”

“Tell him thank you for me,” Tommy said, knowing Sander would get the message. If he was overt about it, Sander would just deny he had anything to do with it.

“I shall,” he said. “Lunch will be in an hour.”

With that, he left and Tommy looked at the school work in front of him. He could push aside his pain for a bit longer and concentrate. That would also give him time to call Wes and see how he was supposed to do this. He just needed to take it one day at a time.


	8. Trial By Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter: Dino Thunder.

Trent looked at the gems in annoyance. Of course none of them were for him. When Tommy’s back had been turned, he’d tried. Then he’d gone to Hayley to admit it in case something had happened to which she’d just comforted him for a while. Truth be told, they had expected him to be a Ranger at some point and to find out he wasn’t was a surprise. As annoyed as he was, he also knew his dad and his dad’s tendency to take forever when it came to choosing someone for this. He claimed that it had to be just the right person. Hayley had gently argued that the Power would make the decision and he didn’t need to worry that they ‘weren’t right’. Trent had suggested just throwing them out into a group of teens and seeing who bonded. Trent’s idea hadn’t been well received.

Regardless, Trent wasn’t stupid. He had been frustrated when he’d said what he had, but that didn’t mean that they were running low on time. “We need to find them,” he said, finally taking his eyes off the gems. Both of the adults gave him a look and he rolled his eyes. “Not by throwing them in a group.”

“Then how would you suggest finding them?” Tommy asked in exasperation. “When the time comes, the gems will go out.”

“Don’t you think it might be good if just once, everything happened before the last minute?” He asked. “So they could train?”

“That’s not the way it works!”

“It should!”

“You don’t understand,” Tommy grumbled and Trent threw his fork down, storming out of the room. Hayley looked over at Tommy.

“Would you like to remind him of his dead parents next?” She asked sardonically. Tommy sat back and sighed. “You know as much as I do that he’s still upset that none of the stones reacted to him.”

“Good,” Tommy said. “He doesn’t need to be a Power Ranger.”

“Of course,” Hayley said. He looked at her at her sarcastic tone. “It’s not like you’re ignoring the obvious.”

“The obvious?” He asked.

“He’s a sixth Ranger,” she said. He glared at her and stood up, being the second to abandon dinner.

“Until he has a morpher in his hand,” Tommy said coolly. “He’s not.”

Hayley sighed, but continued eating. She’d set the leftovers in the fridge so they’d eat later. It wasn’t worth chasing them down right now.

***

Trent ignored the words of his father and decided to use his own intuition to find them. By intuition, he meant ‘clumsily try to figure out how might be good at it’. He wondered if he was a Power Ranger if it would be easier, but pushed that aside when he realized his dad wasn’t exactly all-knowing with that sort of thing either. He glanced around when he saw the soccer team practicing and headed over to watch. He pushed back memories of watching games with his mother when they could, but he had a good idea of how the game worked. 

He watched each of the players when he focused in on the best of the players. He watched him for a bit and studied his movements and how he reacted to the rest of the team. He was cocky, that was sure, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t good at what he was doing. Trent quietly made a note to himself and watched for a little while later before he carried on. Justin had explained that ever team had a leader, a brain, and a heart. Those jobs could be spread out and not just connected to one person, of course, but those were needed. The guy he’d watched might be cocky, but he was leading. He just needed some practice at it.

He found his brain and heart at the café and found names for all three of them. Conner was his possible leader. He met Ethan when he began working for Hayley, helping in the café and the other boy was messing around on the computer and doing things that Trent didn’t really understand, but that impressed Hayley. Kira was a newer singer who put her heart into her music. All three of them were good candidates, but that still left him trying to figure out how to get them to be Rangers to begin with.

***

“I think my hair is a little darker.” Trent looked up from his drawing to see Conner sitting down next to him. “It’s good other than that.”

“You don’t mind?” Trent asked. Conner scoffed.

“Dude, you’re drawing a picture of the best player. Why would I be upset?” He asked. “If you were drawing Derrick, then I’d be upset.”

Trent laughed at that and set the drawing pad aside. “I’m Trent.”

“I’m Conner,” he said, shaking hands. “You’re new, right?”

“Yeah,” he said. “I was home schooled until my parents died.”

Conner winced. “That’s rough.”

“I got adopted,” Trent answered. “But my new dad thinks public school might be good for me.”

“What do you think?” Conner asked.

“I think it might be nice to talk with people my own age,” he said with a laugh. Conner joined in. They sat there for a minute before Conner grinned.

“If you want,” he said. “You can sit closer and I can probably get you some tickets.”

“Thanks!” He said. “Why?”

“I’m hoping for some more drawings,” Conner said with a grin and Trent recognized the truth that Conner liked the attention. He just nodded and made note of it. He’d definitely need some work, but he could be worse.

***

After mentioning Conner’s name to Ethan, Trent had the feeling that this wasn’t going to be an easy team. Ethan felt that Conner was egotistical, cocky, and a jock which were all true. He didn’t seem to realize that when it came to electronics, he was just as egotistical and cocky but that he just managed to not say everything that came to mind. Still, Trent wasn’t about to bring that up to the computer expert and instead changed the subject so he wasn’t down a friend.

“No seriously,” Trent said with a grin. “She’s a computer expert.”

“Batgirl?” Ethan asked. Trent shrugged.

“Well, they call her Oracle now,” he said. “She can find anyone!”

“Like Hayley can?” Ethan asked, motioning toward the café owner. Trent just nodded. “Huh. Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask. How do you know Hayley anyway?”

“She’s friends with my dad,” Trent said easily. Ethan nodded.

“There’s a new game coming out this afternoon. Two player if you want to give it a shot,” he suggested. Trent smiled.

“See you tonight,” he agreed.

***

It was Kira that he wasn’t sure how to talk to. He’d only seen her sing and he was pretty sure that he couldn’t get to talk to her the same way as Conner nor did he really have that much in common with her as Ethan. He didn’t know much about music, so he finally decided to try a different avenue. “I like your style.”

“Excuse me?” She asked, raising an eyebrow and Trent started to feel like this was a really bad plan.

“Your clothes,” he tried again. “I think they look neat.”

Kira blinked again. “Thank you,” she finally said before starting to go back to her music before she paused. “You’re the artist, right?”

He nodded. “Trent,” he said. She gave him a warmer smile. “I just like the aesthetics.”

“Thank you,” she said more honestly the second time. Trent left after that and decided to try again later. After he talked with every other former Ranger and found out how not to be that awkward again.

***

As it turned out, he wasn’t going to be able to ease them into it as he would have liked. Mostly because Mesagog was an ass and decidedly not dead. He’d still been trying to figure things out when it was Jason who called him, feeling the pull that something was going to happen. “Has Tommy given out the gems yet?”

“No,” Trent grumbled. “He’s still waiting for something to happen.”

“Do me a favor. I have a bad feeling,” Jason said. “Take the gems with you today.”

“Why?”

“Where did he build the base?”

“In the middle of the forest… Oh.”

“Thanks, Trent. Trent?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you have any ideas?” He asked. Trent paused and Jason gently pushed. “Justin mentioned that you might have an idea of who should be a Ranger.”

“Maybe,” he said reluctantly. Jason nodded.

“Trust your instincts,” he said. Trent blinked. “I’m worried that Tommy won’t look at anyone under than 21 because they’ll remind him of you. And if I’m right, we don’t have time for that.”

“Okay,” Trent said. “Uncle Jason?”

“Yeah, Trent?”

“Thanks,” he said. There was a pause before Jason spoke up.

“You’re family. And you’re not a Ranger yet, but that doesn’t mean you don’t be one eventually.”

“Thanks,” Trent said again. Jason hung up as Trent started to feel a bit better about himself. He grabbed the gems and headed out. 

***

Sure enough, something attacked the school. He’d figured out by now that the school principal was worthless and really a horrible person, so he knew better than to expect her to do anything. Fortunately, the school itself was in chaos because of that which made his job easier. He found Conner first who was kicking anything he could find at the things to stop them. “Conner!”

“Trent! Get the hell out of here!” He called out, muttering around about how Trent wasn’t much of an athlete. Trent decided to prove him wrong later. For now, they had a school to save. 

“Catch!” He called out. Conner didn’t even think about it as the red gem flew toward him and he caught it in one hand, blinking. He took a step back and shook his head, looking back at Trent.

“What was that?!” He demanded.

“Duck!” Trent answered and Conner did, far faster than normal. He paused and then moved toward the creatures only to find that he was moving far faster than he should have. He grinned and went to work taking some of them down before making it to Trent’s side.

“What’d you give me?” He asked.

“Uh… I’ll explain later?” He asked. “The rest of the school is in trouble.”

“Got it, Dude,” Conner said. “You got any more of those things?”

“A couple. Can you take care of outside?” He asked.

“Oh yeah,” Conner said before taking off and letting Trent go find Ethan. A large part of him wanted to find his dad, but if there was anyone in the school who would be safe, it was his dad. He needed to finish this now. He made his way through and found Ethan in the computer room, trying to keep them away from the computers and some other students who had been hurt.

“Ethan! Catch!” He said, tossing the blue gem toward him. Ethan had to use both hands to catch it, but he managed, doing the same as Conner.

“Trent?” He managed as his head cleared us. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fi…” he started as the Tyrannodrones turned on him. “Or not.”

Ethan looked over and without a second though, rushed them. One tried to hit him, only to hurt itself as Ethan stood taller and knocked several of them to the ground. He looked back at Trent who manage to kick one of them back. He pulled on the training his dad had given him to keep them off of him. The two worked together to push them out of the room and down the hall.

“So, where did you manage to get a magic rock?” Ethan asked, catching his breath.

“I’ll explain later?” He asked. “I still have one left.”

“Holding you to it,” Ethan said before looking a bit worried. “Do you need me to come with you?”

“No,” Trent said. “I can at least defend myself.”

He motioned to the other students and Ethan nodded. Trent nodded back and took off to find Kira who was a bit harder to find. He finally found her in the gymnasium, backing away with all of the other students there. “Uh, Kira?”

She turned around and looked at him as he tossed the gem to her. She caught it and looked at it strangely before shaking her head and blinking. One of the Tyrannodrones got too close and she let out a scream that flung them back. She looked surprised, glanced back at Trent, and then looked at the Tyrannodrones who weren’t advancing, but looked just as confused.

“Everyone out!” Trent called from the door. The students rushed out the doors and the Tyrannodrones finally advanced again. “Kira! Scream again!”

She did so without a second thought and pushed them back. After the rest of the students were out, he motioned to her and the two of them took off as well. They made it outside where the rest of the school was waiting. The kids who were in the Cafeteria head over to thank Kira and Trent could see the Computer Club kids cheering on Ethan. Over in a different section, Conner and the other jocks were happily chatting. The three broke away, however, when they saw Trent and looked at him.

“So, Dude, what was that?”

“I’ve never felt so strong.”

“Do you want to explain how I screamed those creeps into a corner?”

“Yes, Trent. How?” He winced at the last voice as he looked at his father. Tommy looked far displeased but Trent managed to turn his attention to the other three.

“In private?” He suggested, motioning to the rest of the school. The others nodded and Tommy took them off, looking for all the world like an angry teacher. Trent could hear the whispers from the other kids.

“Doctor Oliver isn’t going to bust them, is he?”

“Should we protest or something?”

“I vote we don’t go to class if they get detention.”

Trent tried not to be amused as they headed toward an abandoned section to talk. Trent looked at them with a shrug. “What do you guys know about Power Rangers?”

He wasn’t surprised when they looked at him in confusion. Tommy sighed and took over explaining it.

***

He’d been grounded, of course, though Hayley was the one who was supposed to be watching him and hadn’t done a thing that Tommy had told her to do. She’d even stocked the fridge with his favorite ice cream. Tommy had managed to explain it to them better than Trent could have and they fortunately were all on board, if not a little surprised. Kira had been the hardest to convince, but she admitted that helping her classmates had felt right.

They still weren’t sure about each other, but that was just something that would get better in time. The last part is what got to Trent and he’d left when they found out his secret. Unfortunately, the only place he could think of to run was the café which made it easy for them to find him. Conner hopped over the sofa next him while Kira sat on his other side and Ethan sat across from him. There was silence for a minute.

“So, you stuck around when you found out we were Power Rangers,” Kira said.

“You made us Power Rangers,” Ethan corrected.

“And, Dude, you were worried we’d chase you off because you’re the teacher’s kid?” Conner asked.

Trent looked at all of them and then at the ground. “I’ve heard that it’s a problem sometimes.”

“Dude, you got grounded going against your dad to help everyone,” Conner said. “Somehow, I don’t think you’re going to rat us out to him or anything.”

Ethan and Kira both nodded. Kira just moved her head to the side. “Where did you get an idea like that anyway?”

“TV,” he admitted. They all blinked. Ethan was the next to ask.

“Trent? You were home-schooled, right?” He asked. Trent nodded. “So, everything you know about public school is from TV?”

“And former Rangers,” he answered. They all just stared for a minute. Kira was the first to say anything.

“How about we help you out?” She suggested. Trent nodded.

“Anything I need to know?” He asked.

“Enjoy the fame you’re going to have on Monday?” Conner suggested.

“Huh?”

“Everyone saw you hand out the gems,” Ethan said. “You’re a school hero right now.”

“So are we,” Kira sighed. “So, we might as well deal with it together.”

It was the closest thing to a team decision that they’d made and Ethan headed over to get them all smoothies while Conner and Kira bickered over the better ways to handle high school. Trent looked around to see that they were right. Several students were looking over at them and pointing. Trent realized that his school year was about to be a lot more different than he’d thought.


	9. Performing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone wears a mask at some point: To hide their fear, to protect another, or to make sure a loved one is less embarrassed.

Trent sighed. He wasn’t really part of the team which meant that Tommy needed to spend more time teaching the others how to be Rangers. This was bad for three reasons: One, he missed his dad. Two, he missed his only friends. Three, he was more than a little starting to fall for all three of them in different ways and he was worried that they would forget about him or bond and leave him behind. He was trying to be okay with it since he understood that the world depended on his friends now, but that didn’t make it easier.

“Trent!” Hayley called out and his head snapped to attention. She looked a bit sympathetic, but she looked even more stressed. “I know and understand, but I need you to think straight. Can you do that?”

“Sorry, Tía,” he said quickly. “I’m on it.”

She gave him a nod and headed back to finish some of the smoothies while he rushed out to get orders. He was able to focus a bit more, but there had to be a way to fix it. And he was worried that if he tried to just say it, it wouldn’t come out quite right. No, he needed a better plan. One that involved making Kira roll her eyes in that cute way, that made Ethan smirk like only he knew the secret, and that made Conner look confused in a cute way. He glanced at the specials menu and got an idea. Sure, Hayley would probably kill him, but it would be worth it.

With a plan in mind, he was doing better at his job which kept his favorite aunt happy for the time being. He needed that so he could point it out when she went to strangle him later. Then he waited. Sure enough, later in the day, the trio headed in, arguing as usual. He waited until they were sitting down before he edited the specials menu. He drew a little picture of himself and then added: “Today your barista is: 1) Extremely Bisexual. 2) Desperately Lonely. For your drink today, I recommend: Giving me your number.”

Then he headed over toward the table, but Conner was already laughing. Trent hoped he hadn’t made a mistake when he heard the jock call out “Dibs!”

“Dibs?” Kira asked. “You can’t just call out dibs!”

“Just did, Babe,” Conner said confidently.

“Dibs doesn’t work with boyfriends,” Ethan said confidently, though he kept his voice down. Hayley was already erasing it and glaring at the four. No sense in making it worse.

“Sure it does. I saw it, I called it, I win,” Conner answered. Kira turned to Trent.

“Trent, who do you want?” She demanded. Trent felt like maybe this was a bad plan. He was pretty sure that this was definitely a bad plan.

“Ethan hasn’t ever had a date,” Conner said.

“You don’t know that! I could have had plenty of dates.”

“Oh yeah, sure.”

“Just because I’m not screwing everything with two…” Ethan said heatedly before Kira cut him off.

“Hey! It’s Trent’s choice,” she said. “What do you think, Trent?”

“I want all of you,” he said quietly. They all just looked at him. “Kira is beautiful when she plays her music. And Ethan is hot when he’s talking tech. And Conner is cute when he’d confident about what he’s doing. And all of you want to spend time with me.”

Kira reached over and took his hand squeezing it. “And you’re cute when you’re drawing.”

“Or talking about dinosaurs from what you learned from your dads,” Ethan said, touching his arm. Conner threw an arm around Trent’s shoulder, pushing him down into a spare chair. 

“Or when you’re showing us different fighting modes because Doctor O is way too involved, but you’re having fun,” he said. Trent looked at him.

“I figured you were straight,” he said honestly. Conner shrugged.

“I like attention,” he said honestly. Trent laughed.

“So, how are you going to choose?” Kira asked, looking at him curiously.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “I didn’t think I stood a chance with any of you let alone all of you.”

“So don’t make it exclusive,” Conner said cheerfully. They all looked at him in surprise. “What?”

“That’s actually a good idea,” Ethan said slowly. Kira nodded.

“It will work,” she agreed. Trent beamed. It wasn’t what he expected and he was grateful for that. Thus, it was worth it when he heard Hayley call out.

“Trent? If you’re done with your little love rectangle we need to have a talk about separating work and personal time. Again. Now.”

Definitely worth it.

***

After starting a relationship, Trent was on Cloud 9. He’d been certain nothing could spoil that, but what Hayley dubbed the “Power Rangers Can’t Have Normal Lives” Curse proved him wrong in the worst possible way. 

“What do you mean you lost my dad?” The panic in Trent’s eyes as he looked at Hayley hurt her heart. She’d been there for losing his parents and Anton and she hated that she needed to be the one who told Trent. The other three looked worried as well, but she could see them trying to set that aside. She did believe that they would get to him in time, but if they weren’t able to, she was calling in every other Ranger to help her mentor. She didn’t know what she was doing and she was pretty sure she was going to break this time just as hard as Trent.

“The video showed that he was dragged through one of the invisiportals,” she admitted. Trent didn’t hear the rest of the conversation. All that he could think of was that he was going to lose his dad again. Worse, if they found a way to Mesagog’s Island, he couldn’t go with and he couldn’t help save his dad. He could only wait and hope that his dad would make it back safe. He felt himself sitting down and looked up to see Ethan and Conner helping him.

“We’ll get him back, Trent,” Kira promised.

“Just wait here,” Conner said. “We’ll be back in no time. We just have to break into the base and get him. After we get past the water part.”

“I can’t believe you can’t swim,” Ethan snickered toward Conner who gave him a dirty look. Ethan looked more serious at Trent. “We’ll be back in a bit.”

Trent just nodded and waited for them to leave before he let himself break down. Hayley was polite enough not to say anything.

***

The fear faded into relief and then into anger as he faced down his dad. “You knew there was another gem!” He snapped. Tommy blinked. Trent couldn’t blame him. He was probably expecting a completely different reaction, but Trent was too angry right now. “You had a spare morpher that you kept on you!”

“Trent…”

“No! You did kept it a secret from me! You’re a Ranger now! And you waited until now to show off!” He snapped. Tommy just waited him out. “You knew!”

“I did,” he agreed.

“You knew,” Trent said again as anger began to pass. “You knew.”

Tommy pulled Trent toward him and held him. “I’m sorry. I promise you that I didn’t expect it to choose me. I was keeping the morpher on me so that if we found the gem, I could get it to the next Ranger more quickly. Just like you did.”

Trent just looked at his dad and nodded, leaning in. “I don’t want to lose you again.”

“You won’t,” Tommy promised. “I’ll be right here.”

“What if something happens? Like what happened to Kendrix? Or Zhane?” He asked. Tommy gave him a small smile.

“I’ll come back,” he said again. “It might take me a bit, but I will come back for you.”

Trent knew it was an empty promise, but he took it for the moment. None of the others said a word, but he did feel them step in closer as did Hayley, though keep their distance enough out of respect. He’d never been more grateful for friends who weren’t about to make fun of him nor even bring this up again after today. They’d all pretend like it never happened and he was more than willing to let them.


	10. Windows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes your greatest dream becomes your worst nightmare.

He saw him through the window. He hadn’t thought about it at first and then he thought his mind was playing tricks on him, but as Trent stared through the window, he knew it to be true. He recognized the suit and the hair looked the same. He looked exactly the same from when Trent last saw him. There was no doubt in Trent’s mind and he set the drink down before heading toward the door. Hayley looked up in confusion before she saw what he did. “Ethan!” She ordered. “Watch the till.”

She made it to the door at the same time Trent did, but Trent was out first. He looked for only a minute before throwing his arms around the ghost. “Dad!” He called out.

“Anton!” Hayley said equally happy. “Where have you been? We thought you were dead!”

“I started school,” Trent continued. “And I’ve been helping Aunt Hayley. Dad’s working as a science teacher!”

“It’s a long story,” Anton answered, but Hayley didn’t hear the normal warmth in her friend’s voice.

“Are you coming home?” Trent asked.

“It is my home,” he answered. Hayley felt confused, but still had no idea what was going on. Until she figured it out, however, she was going to mention to Tommy that they might want to stay in the house they’d had to buy in order to hide the lair over it for a bit. Away in the woods might be a good, safe temporary home.

“I’ll let Tommy know,” she said with a polite smile. Anton frowned.

“You’ve been working here?” He asked Trent. Trent nodded. “Why?”

“To help Aunt Hayley,” he said. “Like you asked me to.”

“I didn’t mean for you to work for her. I meant for you to help her pick a place to work,” he said coolly and glared at her. “Maybe I shouldn’t have offered.”

Trent looked between them as Hayley gave him a reassuring smile. “Trent? Why do you go help Ethan?”

He bolted and Hayley folded her arms as she looked at Anton. “Did you hit your head hard?” She asked. “Because I’ve heard that that affects a person’s personality.”

“I was on an island that exploded because my idiot husband didn’t know what he was doing,” Anton snarled. “You tell me that you’d be happy.”

“It’s more than that,” she said, making sure not to be in arms reach. The anger on his face did shift back into an impersonal mask, but she wasn’t stupid. “I’ve known you as long almost as long Tommy, Anton.”

“Then you should know not to get in my way,” he answered darkly. “I want Trent to stop working for you.”

“If that’s what he wants,” she answered.

“I don’t care what he wants right now.”

“I do. I’ll see you tonight, Anton,” she said and headed back in. The fear in her stomach left when he did, but there was a part of her that was chilled to the bone. She looked into his eyes and the soul that looked back at her didn’t match the one that she’d known a year before.

***

Tommy tried to keep Trent’s spirits up after he told him, but Hayley had the feeling that that was because Tommy wanted everything to be fine as much as his son did. They headed toward home and Hayley made a note to have the staff quietly pack up the important things while they were having dinner. She hoped that Sander would be on the same wavelength as her. Sure enough, when they arrived, she met the butler’s eyes and he nodded.

The four of them sat down to dinner and there was little talking going on for a while as if the atmosphere was choking all of them. Finally, Tommy spoke up. “So, Anton, where have you been?”

“In a coma,” he answered. “Since the island exploded. You remember that, don’t you, Tommy?”

Tommy was quiet again as Trent tried the second time. “When did you wake up?”

“Not that long ago,” he answered. “I’d rather not talk about it.”

Trent pushed in a different direction. “I made some friends at school. Good friends.”

Anton didn’t answer. Hayley sighed and tried her own. “We managed to get everything up and running right after,” she explained. “It wasn’t easy without you here.”

“I’m just glad you’re back,” Tommy said, reaching for his hand, but Anton pulled away leaving Tommy feeling a bit hurt. “We looked for you and we thought you were dead. We should go out to dinner tomorrow and celebrate.”

“I’m busy,” Anton said, eating his meal. “Trent, I want you to quit working with Hayley and start to focus on business.”

“I don’t want to…”

“I want you to,” Anton interrupted, not letting Trent say another word about it. Trent was just quiet which fit the rest of dinner. When it was over, Tommy quietly told Trent to go get his things while he got his. Hayley did the same, but she wasn’t surprised to see that they were already packed. She set them by Tommy’s and headed back to find Anton.

“We’re leaving,” she informed him. He turned to look at her. “Trent is legally Tommy’s son since you were legally dead.”

“So why did you come to tell me?” He asked, looking intrigued. She tried to ignore the fear running through her. Even if he had changed, she shouldn’t be feeling this scared toward him. Something was wrong.

“To tell you to go get help. I don’t know if the coma affected your brain or if this left over from trauma, but you’re pushing us away. And we can’t risk you hurting Trent. You need to get yourself checked out,” she said sternly. He headed toward her until he was close enough that she could feel his breath.

“Never tell me what I need again, Hayley,” he said and she was able to see into his eyes again. She turned and ran, not saying a word to the other two thought Tommy wrapped his arm around her to try to calm her. She wasn’t having it. She’d looked into his eyes and hadn’t seen her friend. She’d seen a monster.


	11. Cooking Up An Idea

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After seeing his dad again, Trent thinks it might be a good idea to see what's going on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Cooking.

He’d slept in a strange house, in a strange bed, in a house that was supposed to only be a front for the Lair since the day before they’d found out that his dad wasn’t feeling like his old self, but Trent found that he could still be surprised when he found Conner in the kitchen trying not to burn breakfast. He stared at him for a minute, started to ask a question, stopped himself and finally just sat down. “Ethan told us about the café yesterday,” Conner explained. “He’s getting coffee.”

“Ethan doesn’t have a car,” Trent reminded him.

“He borrowed the jeep.”

“Does Dad know?”

“Nope. He was still sleeping,” Conner answered. He paused what he was doing and face Trent, waving a hand to indicated the room. “We guessed you wouldn’t stay home, so we figured you’d be here.”

“You and Ethan?”

“And Kira,” he said. He waited for Conner to continue. “She’s downstairs keeping an eye on things so Hayley could get some sleep.”

Trent just nodded. Conner headed over and sat down next to him. “So, what do you think is wrong with him?”

“Huh?” Trent asked, trying to figure out what Conner meant. Conner shrugged.

“Well, he was married to your dad, right? And now he’s acting all weird. So, what do you think happened?” He asked.

“Hayley thinks his brain got affected by the coma,” he said. Conner paused and then continued on.

“We’ll call that ‘Option 4’,” he said.

“Four?”

“Ethan did some research. So we made a list of stuff we think might have happened. Evil spells are at the top of the list because it happens a lot. Evil clone is on the list because it happens, but we don’t think it’s that. Because it would be trying to get information or something. Evil masks can affect people. One guy was raised by demons, but we don’t think that would affect anything here. We don’t think he’s an alternate world version. It could be a mind swapping thing,” he said. “We’re just not sure.”

“Why don’t you think Hayley is right?” He asked. Conner laughed.

“Because we’re superheroes. We don’t get normal people stuff. We get evil spells. But there’s only one way to find out,” he said. Trent leaned in. “We need to get into your old house and find out.”

“You just want to play in the pool, don’t you?” Trent teased. Conner grinned.

“I don’t like swimming,” he reminded him. 

“Fine. But only I’m going,” he said and Conner looked displeased. “I can get in easier and I’ve only been gone a day. Besides, Dad still adopted me so I belong there. It’ll be safer.”

“It’ll be safer to let the only one of us without super powers go into a house alone,” Kira said sardonically as she headed up the stairs. “Your definition of ‘safer’ and mine are a little different.”

Trent looked over at Conner. “Trust me.”

Conner looked at him before looking away in annoyed defeat. “Fine.”

Trent smiled. “I have one favor to ask.”

“Other than us letting you run into a house where your dad went bananas?” Conner asked. Trent gave him a look before continuing. 

“Keep dad busy?” He asked, motioning to the bedroom. Conner and Kira looked between each other before nodding. “And Conner? Can I borrow your raptor?”

“Better bring her back in one piece!” He said with a nod. With that, Trent took off.

***

His house wasn’t any different and while they didn’t seem happy he was there, the staff easily let him in. Trent moved through the house as he hid the fear he had. He made his way through the rooms, stopping outside of his dad’s office and just listening. He was talking on the phone about something, but Trent couldn’t make it out. He waited until the phone clicked and peaked in just in time to see his dad go through an invisiportal. He blinked. “Okay, maybe Conner and Ethan were right,” he muttered and against his better judgment went through. He felt fortunate that he didn’t land in the same place his dad was in and looked around.

Unlike the other four, he’d never been in Mesagog’s fortress before. He quietly decided against returning for a second visit. He made his way through, finding a computer and looking at it, glad it was in English. He read through most of it as he saw the plan to turn the world into a dinosaur bonanza as well as some of the other experiments that had happened. He winced at the section of changing Smitty to be the cyborg they fought as well as feeling sick that Elsa had been the one to find Mesagog and take care of him, only for him to experiment on her as well until she was more powerful and a servant. He flipped through both quickly, trying to find anything of use when he felt the pull.

He headed over and saw the white crystal and morpher lying there. Trent reached for it, but paused. His dad’s had been covered in crystal. That’s why they’d needed Tommy to get it, but this was one wasn’t covered at all and the morpher beside it made him cautious. More than once his dad’s friends had said he was his father’s son and he wasn’t about to prove them right by being evil. Conner was right. Evil curses happened a lot. He took off his outer shirt and covered the morpher and gem with it before backing up and heading toward the invisiportal when he heard Elsa and Mesagog coming. He looked around and hid, holding the gem to him.

“Have you found a solution, Master?” She asked.

“No. He still fights me. He’s getting weaker, but I could barely keep him in check at dinner,” he said. “I need to be rid of him.”

She just nodded as Mesagog took a breath and began to shift. Trent looked out a bit to see as the dinosaur shifted and changed back in Anton Mercer. His eyes widened and he shifted a bit, knocking into his hiding place and cursing. It was his dad’s eyes that turned to look at him. “Trent.”

“D-dad… I…” he started as his father started toward him. He kept an arm around his shirt and scooted back, trying to make his way to his feet when he felt Elsa drag him up. He had to admit that maybe Conner had been right and this hadn’t been his best plan.

“You’re not supposed to come into my office, Trent,” Anton informed him.

“That’s a new rule,” he mentioned. “You didn’t used to mind.”

“Stealing isn’t,” he said instead. Trent had to give that one. It wasn’t like he ever had, but it was still a rule. “That’s alright. Try it on.”

“That’s okay, I’ll pass,” he said with a polite smile before kicking Elsa as hard as he could and running past her. To his surprise, his father didn’t move.

“You’ll do it eventually. It calls for you,” he said and Trent was feeling pretty good about not touching it. His dad was right, it was screaming at him to touch it but he was more than certain it was a bad idea.

“Maybe later,” he answered. He almost missed it, but Anton’s eyes shifted slightly, becoming less hard, and he threw a tray that had been nearby in Trent’s direction. Trent moved a bit, but when he turned around, he saw Zeltrax picking himself up. He looked back at his dad.

“Run, Trent,” the man said, before clutching his head. “RUN!”

Trent did as he was told and ran to the portal, clinging to the jacket. As he made his way through, he could hear one last thing: “I’m sorry.”

He made it through the house, rushing through the rooms and back out the door, rushing to find the raptor which was hiding, but nearby. He touched it and hopped on its back, running as fast as he could away and making it back to his new home. Tommy came out in a near rage, but stopped when he saw his son and pulled him to him. “Trent…”

Hayley had followed him out, followed by all three chastised Dino Thunder Rangers. Trent looked over at Conner. “You were right. I shouldn’t have gone with you.”

“Are you alright?” Kira asked.

“I shouldn’t…”

“Trent!” Tommy said, pulling Trent back. “What happened?”

“Dad doesn’t have brain damage and he’s not under spell and he’s not an evil clone and he didn’t swap minds with anyone,” he answered. Tommy pretended like the babbling made sense. “He’s Mesagog.”

“What?” Tommy asked.

“That’s why he was acting funny. He can shift back and forth, but Mesagog’s mostly in control,” Trent said, still clinging to the shirt.

“Are you sure?”

“I saw it happen!” Trent said. “I talked to him. And I saw Dad take back control for a minute.”

“How?”

“He fought Mesagog and he told me to run,” he said. “And he said he was sorry.”

Tommy nodded. “Then we’ll just have to get him back,” he assured him. Trent nodded.

“Yeah,” Conner said and Trent looked up in surprise. “I mean, Hayley made morphers, so she can probably make something to split them.”

“Morphers,” Trent said, put the shirt in Hayley’s hand. “You should probably do some tests and stuff on this.”

“What is it?” Hayley asked.

“My morpher,” he answered. “Well, eventually. I didn’t want to hear ‘See, you are just like your dad’ for being an evil Power Ranger.”

“Justin wouldn’t say that to you,” Tommy said. “He’d say it to me instead. Never do anything like that again. And don’t even think about touching that morpher until Hayley gives it the okay. Go do some laps. No super speed, Conner. You too, Trent. All of you are still in a lot of trouble. And Trent, we’ll talk about how grounded you are later.”

The four looked at each other and shrugged before starting their run. “Sorry I got you guys in trouble,” he said. Conner waved him off.

“We knew what we were doing,” he assured him. The other two nodded and Trent felt a little lighter. It wasn’t perfect, but maybe everything wasn’t as bad as he thought it was. Even if his dad was going to yell at him for over an hour later. He wouldn’t admit it, but he probably deserved it. That said, it was worth it to know that they’d eventually be able to get his dad back and he’d have a family again.


	12. Fantasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trent's Fantasy finally comes true.

“You fell asleep in class twice,” Ethan informed him. “How did you pass that test?”

“Reggie gave me his notes,” Conner answered. “He mentioned that there’d been two monster attacks the day before I fell asleep both times.”

“Is that why you fell asleep?”

“I fell asleep because I tried to do homework after,” Conner answered. Kira looked pensive.

“Cassidy distracted Mrs. Dorf so I could leave last Thursday,” she mentioned. “And Devin just winked.”

“Well, it’s not like it’s a secret. Just because no one says anything doesn’t mean that every student doesn’t know,” Ethan mentioned. “They were there when Mesagog attacked the school.”

“How come the teachers and the other adults don’t know then?” Conner asked.

“I dunno. It happens in shows a lot,” Ethan answered with a shrug.

“They’re denying it,” Trent said and they looked at him. “Uncle Jason mentioned that Dad would have tried to give the morphers to adults instead of teens because he’d be seeing me in your place. The other adults feel the same way,” he said. “They want to deny the fact that the people who they have to let save them are, in their minds, kids.”

They all looked at each other, nodded, and accepted that. “How’s Hayley doing with the gem?”

“Well, we’re pretty sure it’s not evil anymore,” he answered.

“Pretty sure?” Kira asked.

“We’re not sure how to test it.”

***

“We need to test it on something,” Tommy said with some determination. Hayley had her head in her arms, tired of trying to explain to him that they couldn’t get it to bond with anything else. 

“I don’t know how to test it, Tommy,” she said. “First off, it won’t bond with anything else and even if it would, do you think that’s a good idea?”

“Maybe I can get Cole to look at it,” he said with a sigh. When the alarm sounds, he just groaned. “Just keep trying. I’ll be back soon.”

***

“How’s it going?” Hayley asked, letting Trent watch as she worked on the gem.

“Not good,” he admitted. “I think that’s the third time Conner’s been on the ground. They’re just outnumbered. It’s like Mesagog gave these Tyrannodrones steroids.”

“They can’t find an opening?” She asked, moving away from the gem to join him. He backed up to give her more space.

“No. They’ve been trying, but they’re just not getting anywhere,” he said.

“Maybe I can figure something out,” she said. “They’d be able to handle this a lot better if Zeltrax and Elsa were staying out of it.”

“Zeltrax still hates Dad because he’s an idiot and I’m pretty sure Elsa is brainwashed or something so if Mesagog said ‘Here, hop in this volcano’, she would,” he answered. Hayley sighed and looked hard at the screen to see if there was anything she could suggest. Trent, on the other hand, looked at the gem. He could still feel it calling and Hayley was pretty sure it was safe. 

He glanced back at the fight, only to see Kira flying backward and crashing against a wall. He set his jaw and reached out, grabbing the gem and waiting. It was a gamble. If it was still evil, he’d just made everything worse. Instead, he felt energy that he hadn’t felt before and the sound of a dinosaur screaming into his ears. His hand closed around it and he grabbed the morpher.

“Trent, can you pass me the laptop? Trent?” Hayley groaned as she noticed the gem missing from its containment. “Trent!” She growled, but the boy was nowhere to be seen.

***

Tommy looked over to see Conner trying to get himself back up. He winced as he felt his suit was on his last legs. Both Kira and Ethan looked just as bad and he wasn’t really sure they were still consciousness until he saw Kira move a bit. He managed to make it to his feet, but another surge and he was back on the ground. He wasn’t sure what to do when he saw it.

“Hey!” Trent’s voice rang through the area and his eyes narrowed. “Get away from my dad.”

Zeltrax looked amused as Elsa turned to Tommy. “Having your son fight for you now?”

“Trent! Run!” Tommy yelled, barely managing to get it out. Trent didn’t listen, but kept coming toward them instead. He pulled the white gem out of his pocket, followed by the morpher. Tommy’s eyes widened at that.

“I said get away from my dad,” Trent said coolly. “White Ranger. Dino Power.”

Unlike the others, he didn’t yell the phrase. His voice had a harsh tone to it as if he was growling. White light surged through him The last thing Tommy saw before the helmet landed on him was Trent’s smirk. He posed and then charged at them. The Tyrannodrones were tossed every which way as Trent rushed through them with little problem. He sliced at Zeltrax before turning on Elsa and slicing through the air. Arrows shot out at her, forcing her to dodge before he focused on Zeltrax.

“You annoying little…!” Zeltrax snapped. “You always were a pest.”

“Guess somethings never change,” Trent said calmly. “Mom once said that you were a terrible archeologist. I guess you’re not much better as a lackey, huh?”

“Your mother…” he started, but stopped when Trent swipped a little further south than Zeltrax would have like, causing Zeltrax to quickly defend himself. He didn’t have time to pick it back up as Trent easily kicked him back and turned back to Elsa. He waited, but she looked at Zeltrax.

“We should retreat for now. Tyrannodrones! Morph!” she said quickly, heading away. Zeltrax made a displeased noise, but quickly followed her through the invisiportal. The Tyrannodrones melded together to begin to form a giant, but they were interrupted by a screech and a Zord they hadn’t seen before dove at it, easily taking it down before giving a victory call.

With Elsa and Zeltrax gone, Trent headed toward the Zord which leaned down to look at him. He’d spent enough time looking at dinosaur books to recognize this one. It nudged him and he touched its beak. Mesagog had wanted him to take the gem, knowing it was Trent’s because Anton had suspected. Tommy had been a sixth and Anton had known his son would be a Ranger. He had to have guessed for standing next to him was a biozord version of a Tupuxuara. 

“Hey,” Conner said, catching up. “Nice Zord.”

“It’s a Tupuxuara,” he said. Conner blinked.

“Can we call it something else?” He asked. Trent paused before looking at his dad and giving a small smile.

“How about the Dragozord?” He asked. Conner nodded. He felt Ethan on his other side and Kira joined them. His dad put his hands on Trent’s shoulders. While his dad would be upset later, right now everything felt right. His father had remembered what he’d asked for and delivered. 

***

The next day, Trent headed to school with the others, trying to avoid his Dad. He was still getting used to the Power running through him and the fact that his power was similar to his father’s which would probably lead to several jokes about parentage among the rest of the family. He just sighed and accepted it, but to make matters worse, his father was still upset about the whole thing. Not just the fact that Trent had taken a possibly unsafe gem, but that he was a Ranger period. It took him nearly getting to his locker before he realized that people were staring at him. He paused at that, but tried to ignore it as he opened his locker.

Cards and notes fell from within. He picked them up and looked through them:

“Hey! Congrats on being the White Ranger! Took you long enough!”

“Great seeing that you’re finally part of the team! Couldn’t have happened to a better guy!”

“I was surprised you weren’t a Ranger before, but seeing that battle yesterday showed me that you were just bidding your time!”

“You curbstomped them!”

“Congratulations!”

“Hey, it’s Tim from math. Let me know if you need help with notes or something. I know you guys have to ditch sometimes.”

“Thanks for saving us again!”

“Knew you’d be a Ranger since the school got attacked! Just didn’t think it would take so long, but I called it! Congrats!”

He turned around, but everyone was managing not to stare anymore. He felt a hand on his arm and looked over to see Kira smiling at him, notes in her hand. He turned around and Ethan and Conner showed him theirs. They had the best support system.


	13. Public Transport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Justin knows what it's like when a team is undecided on a member which is why he's bound and determined to help his best friend.

Justin made a decision: He hated Greyhound buses. Compared to Storm Blaster, the ride took too long and it was boring. He’d been using Storm Blaster as his transportation since he was twelve and, after this, he didn’t think he wouldn’t go anywhere again without him until it involved having to cross an ocean. Storm Blaster was good, but he wasn’t that good. He leaned against the window and looked at the cellphone in his hand. Trent had called him in both excitement and a panic. Surprising to no one, Trent was a Power Ranger and a sixth Ranger. Unless the person being surprised was Tommy, but Justin was assuming that that was just denial.

The fact that Trent had used a possibly dangerous morpher wasn’t good, but he’d run out of time. He’d mulled over the thoughts in his head before coming up with a decision: He’d risk the slight pain to Tommy if it meant helping integrate Trent into the team. He knew from personal experience that the quicker and smoother it went, the easier it would be on everyone. It was one thing if the Sixth Ranger had been evil, but Parental Issues weren’t something needed right now.

He headed into the house. He knocked on the door before walking in, hearing the argument already taking place. It was as expected: The teens for, Tommy against, Hayley staying out of it. They all paused at looked at the door.

“So,” Justin said wryly. “I heard you got a Sixth Ranger.”

“No, Justin,” Tommy started but Justin cut in.

“Jason told me they accepted you in the minute the evil spell was broken. Is Trent acting evil?” He demanded.

“No, but…”

“Has he displayed any new tendencies that could lead to him being evil?”

“No.”

“Is there any possibility that a certain mentor is acting super overprotective toward his son and is letting that affect his judgment?” He demanded. Tommy didn’t answer and Justin nodded. “Thought so.”

“I’m starting to wish I hadn’t given you guys my new address,” he grumbled. 

“And miss out on the ‘We’re sorry your husband is evil right now’ cookie tins?” He asked. Tommy sighed and gave his friend a nod. Justin looked over at Hayley. “Give him a hug for me?”

Hayley did so before turning around and pulling Justin to her. “Thank the Power you’re here,” she muttered. “They could have been at this for days.”

“Weeks,” he agreed. He looked at Tommy. “Do you need me in a different room or…?”

“As long as we’re on opposite sides, it will be fine. Conner, Ethan, Kira, meet Justin. He was Blue Turbo,” Tommy said with a bit of a flair. Justin ignored it, knowing how Tommy got. He waved instead.

“Trent mentioned you guys a few times,” he said. “And Tommy sent pictures.”

They all looked at their mentor who was busying himself up with schoolwork to grade. “Pictures?” Conner asked. Justin nodded.

“Your game, Kira’s concert, Ethan at the café…” he said. “I think Kim’s starting a scrapbook.”

“Kim?” Kira asked. Justin grinned.

“Mighty Morphin’ Pink,” he said. “When you’re finished saving the world, we’ll go on a road trip and you guys can meet everyone. They’re dying to meet you, invite you into the Ranger Family, tell embarrassing stories about Tommy…”

“Dude, we need to finish saving the world soon,” Conner said cheerfully as Tommy groaned. “Because I need to hear these stories.”

“There are eleven people who want you to hear them if you include me,” Justin assured him. “We haven’t even been able to tell Trent all of them.”

“Thanks for that,” Tommy groused, but Justin could see the relaxed look as well. He pulled out the tin of cookies Kim had sent with him, got some milk from the fridge, and invited them to sit down. He gave a quick look to Tommy to assure him everything would be fine before leaning into Trent a bit for comfort.

“You grabbed a possibly evil morpher?” He murmured.

“They were going to kill my team,” Trent whispered back. “I had to do something.”

Justin nodded and then nudged him. “Fine. But next time, wait until Hayley’s done testing it.”

“I will,” Trent assured him and then grinned harder. “Guess what my dinosaur is?”

“Hmm?”

“We call it the Dragozord, but technically it’s a Tupuxuara,” he said with more than a little excitement. Justin shared in it since they both knew what that meant. “It’s connected to the White Gem. How did Dad know?”

“I don’t think he did,” Justin said. “My guess is it synced up after. The dinosaur your dad made for you just makes sense to match your gem now.”

Trent looked at his morpher and smiled softly. “He made me a dinosaur.”

“He did,” Justin said just as softly. He looked up and over at Tommy. “Hey! Trent got his Dragozord! Where’s my microraptor?”

He ducked from the pillow Tommy threw. “You have Storm Blaster.”

“That’s why I wanted a microraptor. So it could fit inside or ride on top. Storm Blaster likes the idea,” Justin said and turned back to the others. “Let me tell you the most embarrassing stories I can think of,” he said, ignoring Tommy’s groan. The four in front of him were giving him their full attention and he couldn’t help but to feel that Tommy wasn’t as grumpy about it as he would have been.

“Before that,” Kira said, to her teammates’ groans. “Why can’t Doctor O and you be in the same room?”

Justin sighed before telling them, quickly moving between stories so that Tommy wouldn’t have to hear about it too much. He was certain he wasn’t the only feeling the pain of loss from it and he wanted it to be a happier time right now. Thus, he felt no guilt in thinking of several embarrassing stories to tell them. He just had to leave alone the stories he wasn’t there for. He couldn’t leave the others out of the fun. A look toward Tommy to see embarrassment, but less anger and the relief and amusement on Trent’s face told him that he’d made the right choice in coming.


	14. Hiding an illness/injury

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommy's problem with the Power is finally too painful for him so he puts together a plan.

Tommy winced as he leaned against the wall, clutching his wrist before carefully taking the morpher off and moving away from it. It didn’t stop the pain completely, but at least it helped a bit. He took some deep breaths and tried to get the pain under control. He knew it was getting worse. He’d hidden it when Justin had come over, but that was worse than usual as well. Usually, Justin was the easiest for him to deal with due to fact that they hadn’t worked with each other as long, but this time, it was worse than when he’d seen Jason. He was nearly certain that seeing Kim or Billy face to face right now might kill him.

He was just lucky that Justin had been distracted the time he was there with the quartet because otherwise he would have noticed. He stumbled toward the kitchen to grab some water and, not for the first time, missed Anton’s mansion and staff. It would have been much easier to politely as for a glass and lie on the floor. He took three breaths before picking up the cup and filling it, holding it carefully with both hands and sipping. He couldn’t keep this hidden forever, but he couldn’t mention it either. Usually the pain would have passed by now, but it hadn’t and he couldn’t stop fighting. They needed him right now. The fight they’d almost lost proved that and for him to take himself out of the fight might mean one of the kids might get hurt. If he was honest, most likely Conner or Trent would get hurt trying to overcompensate. No. He couldn’t tell Hayley and have her bench him while she looked over his morpher.

Which gave him exactly one other option. He normally wouldn’t be able to hide things from Billy since the man was observant, but all of his teammates knew the others’ weaknesses so that they could compensate for each other. Billy’s was tunnel vision. It hadn’t been so bad back in the day because they were there to counter him, but he’d been completely focused for years on fixing Tommy’s problem, fixing Aquitar, helping Eltar, keeping an eye on Phaedos, and anything else he could think of. In other words, his workaholic problem could be used to make sure he didn’t question too much. He hooked up the communicator to make the call, trying to keep himself from looking completely out of it before his friend answered.

Billy did so absently without even looking into the communicator and Tommy could see the exhaustion hanging from his friend. “You need a break,” he said before anything else. It caused Billy to look up to see who was talking.

“I will rest when we have a cure,” he answered. It was an old argument. Billy looked at him. “Have you been around the others?”

“Just Justin,” he said. “He came to check on Trent and chew me out for getting overprotective.”

“Considering how many times he has called to tell me to get some sleep, I understand,” he said. Tommy blinked.

“That many?” He asked.

“Exactly half as often as Jason, a third of Kim’s, the same amount as Trini and Kat’s ‘random chats’, slightly more often that Zack’s ‘let me show you the newest music or dance craze’, just as often as Aisha’s ‘Are you eating properly?’ talks, several more than Tanya’s ‘You’re okay, right?’ worries, far less than Rocky’s ‘Should we come visit or will you be back soon’ pushes, and more than Adam’s ‘You can’t fix it when you’re sick’ talks,” he answered before pausing to look at him. “And about as often as your calls in.”

“That you rarely answer,” Tommy mentioned. “It’s why I had Hayley start to do it.”

Billy actually looked contrite on that one and leaned back as he rubbed his temple. “I’m sorry, Tommy,” he said. “It’s just every time I see you…”

“You feel guilty,” Tommy said. “Stop it. It wasn’t your fault.”

“You wouldn’t have been there if I hadn’t been stubborn,” Billy said. “I was still hurt and I was conflicted when you were there.”

“We did the right thing staying. We would hve lost the Aquitian Rangers if we’d left,” he reminded him. He was quiet for a minute. “I miss you.”

Billy looked at him. “We all miss you.”

“I talk to the others,” he said. “It hurts not being able to be near them, but I’m able to talk to them. I miss you.”

Billy looked at the screen and then back at Tommy. “I miss you too,” he said quietly.

“I’m sorry about Cestra,” Tommy said quietly. Billy had a slight smile.

“She couldn’t stay married to a workaholic,” he said. “It was an amiable breakup.”

Tommy nodded, not sure what to say on that and Billy didn’t say anything. “How are the Aquitian Rangers?”

“Cestro has been continually helping me in his spare time though Aquitians are long lived and none of them are ready to retire. Aurico suggested for you to come visit right before you got your new morpher. Corcus has been around more and more the past few months helping. He hasn’t said why, but I appreciate his assistance. Tideus keeps everything lively. Delphine has mentioned several times that if you need them, they can come to Earth for a bit. She was pleased that Aurico didn’t seem to bother you when he fought with you on the moon.”

“We didn’t fight with them,” Tommy said. “Tell her that I don’t need her to come, but she’s always welcome. They all are.”

Billy and he shared a smile at that. “I’ll let her know,” he promised.

“I was thinking,” Tommy said, finally getting around to the reason he called. “I might not be a genius, but maybe I can see something you missed with trying to fix me.”

Billy did his best not to look skeptical. “It’s possible,” he said diplomatically. Tommy shrugged.

“Would it hurt for me to see?” He asked. He knew that Billy had been arguing against sharing with Justin, Adam, and Hayley for years in penance. He just had to hope that Billy would let him have it since it applied to him.

“I guess not,” he answered. “I’ll send my notes to you.”

“Thanks,” Tommy said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

Billy just nodded. “I hope you do.”

The conversation ended soon after.

***

He looked at the papers that Billy had left him, leaving anything unrelated to the side. He had to find a temporary solution to keep the kids safe. He was still feeling sick to his stomach that teens were fighting monsters and worse that his son was one of them. Not for the first time, he was happy for not having his parents know what he was up to so long ago. They would have been terrified.

He went through the notes that Billy had left and focused in on one part that his friend had emphasized. Apparently, Billy had been looking into mixing the various powers of all the teams he’d been on. He was nearly certain that his friend intended to mix all of the morphers from everyone they knew, but he had to admit that just using his might work as a band-aid. He headed toward his room and pulled out all of his morphers, looking them over. He didn’t feel anything from him, but Billy’s theory was that there was still a fragment of Power left in them. The theory went on to state that if the Power from the Grid went through all of them consecutively, the result might be stabilizing. The theory was in its first stages, but Tommy didn’t have time to wait. He had to give it a shot to buy himself time. Billy could finish testing the larger version later if he wanted. 

Tommy headed down the stairs and looked at what he’d been given as he made his way to the lair. The moment he was inside, however, he saw Hayley and froze. “What are you doing here?” He asked. She looked over at him, rubbing her eyes.

“The last battle with Elsa and Zeltrax screwed everything up,” she said with a frown before looking at him. “Not to mention I’m still going over Trent’s morpher to make sure it doesn’t revert.”

“You need to sleep,” he told her.

“That seems to be going around,” she said pointedly. He looked a little sheepish.

“I need to try something,” he said. She looked at him questioningly. “I’ll explain later. Tell you what, you work on your stuff and I’ll work on mine, but when I’m done, we both go to sleep.”

“Why yours?” She asked.

“It’ll take less time,” he answered. She paused and he felt worse as he realized just how tired she was that she wasn’t demanding to see what he was working on.

“Fine,” she said finally and went back to work. Tommy calmed down and pulled out all of the power sources, reading Billy’s notes. He started it and the Power rushed through all of them, heading specifically for his gem. The gem throbbed and the pain Tommy was used to intensified. Everything went white from the pain and he screamed. He could hear Hayley’s voice, but didn’t understand what she was saying. The last thing he saw before he went unconscious was the crystal shattering in several pieces. Then it was quiet.


	15. Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Tommy in a coma, Hayley does the only thing she can think of: Calls in reinforcements.

Hayley was keeping herself together. That’s what she needed to remind herself. She just needed to keep it up. She’d dragged Tommy off the floor and onto a table so that it was easier to check him over, but she didn’t even really know what she was looking for. She’d sent out the tradition S.O.S. to the other Rangers as soon as she could to try to get some help. She was pretty sure it had to do with Billy’s notes, but she did her best not to mention that to him. With all of the guilt he already felt, she didn’t want to make it worse. She took a breath and pulled herself together, heading up the stairs. “Trent,” she said, knocking on the door. “Time to get up.”

Trent groaned. “Five more minutes.”

“Now Trent,” she said with a bit of a smile. She was rewarded with the door opening a minute later. He looked at her and frowned.

“Where’s Dad?”

“He’s not feeling well this morning,” she said. He nodded and headed toward the bathroom.

“He would have let me sleep five more minutes,” Trent muttered.

“He was never good at getting up on time either!” She shot back, job done. She made her way into the kitchen and cooked with little thought. Her mind wasn’t on the food. It was on the man in the lab below. Trent sat down to eat, looking at her strangely. When the alarm sounded to tell her that there had been an attack, she’d never felt so lucky. She hurried Trent off and called the others. When she was gone, she finally collapsed into a chair and tried to figure out what to do next. Thus she wasn’t paying attention and jumped when she felt the hand on her shoulder. She knew it couldn’t be Tommy, but she whirled around in hope anyway.

“I am sorry I startled you.”

“Billy, right?” Hayley asked, looking at him. Of all of Tommy’s friends, Billy was the one she didn’t know very well. He’d been so focused on trying to fix everything with Tommy, that she just had never gotten to know him even with Tommy trying to get her to call instead. That said, she knew the Aquitian Rangers exceptionally well. He nodded and looked over to where Tommy had been working.

“I am assuming that he decided to merge the power in the morphers?” He said, looking it over.

“I think so,” Hayley said. “I looked over your notes and the theory is sound, but his morphers tore apart his gem.”

“That is because he was hoping to stall the effects that were running through his body,” Billy explained. “In order for the theory to work, outside influences would have had to have been involved.”

“He needed other former Rangers,” she said. He nodded.

“The Power, in this case, is all encompassing,” he explained. “That is what is needed to make the morphers. Yet, when a morpher is used, it changes slightly to bond with the wearer.”

“What about shared powers?” She asked.

“It has both there,” he said. “But the secondary wearer isn’t as connected with it. If you were to ask Jason, Trini, Kim, Zack, and I which power we were most connected to, it would be our first. However, for Rocky, Aisha, and Adam is was in fact their ninja powers. Kat and Tanya are closely connected to Zeo. Justin, of course, is Turbo. Tommy is an odd one of being closely connect with both green and white. Green because he started out with it and white because it was specifically created for him.”

“Then the reason that the connection is there is because it’s the first bond,” she said. He nodded. “Then why aren’t Rocky, Adam, and Tommy connected with Zeo as well?”

“That is merely the human aspect,” he explained. “We just get attached to the first. Aquitar has been passing down the same powers for generations, but they consistently remake the morphers so that there is recharge. Cestro admitted that humans changing through Powers as quickly as we do may give us a leg up in terms of raw power, but it’s also less controlled.”

“You mean they’re able to control theirs better?” She asked.

“Cestro explained it like a pet. When you first get a new pet, you need to train it and teach it, but it has more energy. An older pet is controlled, trained, but has less of the energy,” he said. 

“Then when Tommy tried to fix himself, all he did was run the same kind of power through all of it, but the green and white coins overloaded the gem,” she said, catching on. “The other powers would have pulled.”

“I asked Delphine and her group to come for that reason,” he said. “They may be able to help us stabilize it. For now, it’s probably best he’s in a coma.”

Hayley looked over at her friend, still lying on the table and hoped Billy was right about that. Both of them heard a shout and turned to the monitor. Both had completely forgotten that Hayley had sent the four teens out to fight, but Hayley had thought it would be an easy fight. She watched in horror as the monster in front of them took their powers. She felt Billy put a hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I didn’t come alone.”

***

“Okay, that’s new,” Conner mentioned, pulling himself to his feet. He looked over to see the others following suit as they just looked at them. Trent looked behind him.

“We’re surrounded,” he whispered. They continued to back up, but they could hear the Tyrannodrones behind him.

“Where’s Doctor O?” Kira asked.

“Sick,” he said.

“Great timing,” Ethan muttered.

“We should retreat,” Conner said. “Until we have a better plan.”

“Great,” Trent said sardonically. “How do we do that?”

“It would be easier if we had a car,” Ethan grumbled. “We need to talk to Justin about getting a sentient car.”

“He’s still mad he didn’t get his microraptor,” Trent whispered. “Besides, I think there’s only two of them.”

“Whoa,” Conner said, ignoring the fight for the moment. Kira quickly moved to cover him, though she gave him a look. “There are two sentient cars? Where’s the other?”

“I don’t know. It was T.J.’s,” Trent said.

“Isn’t T.J. a Red Ranger?” Conner asked. Trent winced.

“He’s blue now…” he tried.

“But Justin has the blue one so he was red at the time! There’s a sentient red car out there and no one is using it?!” Conner exclaimed. Kira rolled her eyes.

“Yes, Conner. That’s what we should be focusing on right now,” she grumbled, motioning to the Tyrannodrones. Conner caught her meaning and quickly moved back into place.

“We wouldn’t have a problem if we had a sentient car right now,” Conner grumbled. 

As he said it, they heard the revving up of a car and watched as several Tyrannodrones went flying out of the way. Storm Blaster stopped right in front of them and Justin jumped out. Conener looked over at Ethan to see if he was just as surprised and the Blue Dino Thunder Ranger gave a quick nod. Justin, on the other hand, looked them over. “Hey, I heard. You guys alright?”

“Other than the powers thing,” Conner said, holding up his useless morpher. “If Doctor O wasn’t sick, he could take this guy and get our powers back.”

Justin paused. “Sick?

“Yeah,” Trent said. “Hayley said he’s sick.”

Justin quickly changed tracks. “So, they took your powers?”

“Yep,” Ethan said. Justin stood in front of them and glared at Elsa and her new monster. 

“That was low,” he informed her.

“Another Ranger?!” She demanded. “Take his powers too!”

The monster tried and failed. “Shift into Turbo!” Justin snapped and the suit surrounded him.

“You’re not a Dino Thunder Ranger!” Elsa said in surprise. Justin moved his head to the side and tried to look as sarcastic as possible since she couldn’t see his face.

“Glad to see you’re observant,” he said and rushed at them. “Storm Blaster! Get them out of here!”

There were a couple of beeps of the horn and the Dino Thunder Rangers looked at Trent who was climbing in. “Dude, should we leave him alone?” Conner asked.

“If he wasn’t going to be okay, Storm Blaster wouldn’t leave him,” Trent said. “So get in the car.”

They shrugged and followed his lead. Justin made sure they were in the car before turning his attention to the problem before him. As Storm Blaster backed up, Justin began taking the group down to buy them time, but stayed on their tail. Trent watched in surprise as Blue Turbo rushed the drones and sent them flying back. When they were clear, Storm Blaster turned back around and the Dino Thunder Rangers watched as Justin made his way to the car, leaping onto the back and shooting some of the stragglers. When they were far enough away, Storm Blaster stopped and Justin pulled himself inside before they headed off.

“You four okay?” He asked. They all nodded. “Good. Let’s get you home. We have a lot to talk about.”

***

It was when they were on their way back that Hayley heard voices coming down the stairs. She turned to look as Jason made his way in and pulled her into a quick hug before Kim and Zack got a hold of her. Trini waited and gave her a polite hug when they were done. Jason turned to Billy and pulled him into a longer hug as did the others. “I would have thought you would have come with Justin,” Billy said.

“He doesn’t understand what “Justin, wait!” means,” Jason grumbled. “He left without me.”

Kim giggled as Zack snickered. Trini tried to hide her smile. Billy just looked at him. “He left you?”

Jason didn’t answer, but he looked suitably annoyed. “He took the fastest car and left.”

“Storm Blaster is his partner,” Kim reminded him. “Not just a car.”

“I know,” Jason said. “But he could have used help.”

“I could use some help,” Hayley said quickly. Most times she would have just let them go at it for some time, but right now she needed them focused. They all dropped it and turned to look at her. “Where’s Rocky, Adam, Kat, Aisha, and Tanya?”

“With the Aquitian Rangers,” Kim explained. “We needed some help keeping them hydrated. And who better to ask a ninja for help than another ninja?”

“We needed ninjas?” Hayley asked.

“Water ninjas,” Trini explained. “So that the Aquitians don’t dehydrate.”

Hayley nodded and watched as they immediately went to work trying to figure things out. Trini stood by Billy to let him bounce ideas off of her. Zack and Kim were on the phone to other techs to get their opinions, though both admitted that they were just reading off what Billy had and writing down the response. Neither understood a word of it. Hayley, Billy, Justin, Trini, or Adam could translate it later. Jason did a quick looked over before heading over to Tommy to look him over. When Hayley joined him, he wrapped his arms around her and she let loose the tears she’d been holding. Now that the family was here, she believed they’d find a cure.


	16. Colors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, everything is starting to shift the right way and the other Rangers are there to help it happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Wild Card (Colors)

Jason set the Dino Thunder Rangers down, but before he could say anything, Trent looked him in the eye. “What’s wrong with Dad?”

Jason looked caught off guard. “What?”

“Everyone has the same look on their face as when my parents died and when Dad died. You wouldn’t be here because you hurt Dad unless it wasn’t a problem anymore,” Trent said, trying to keep his voice level. Jason quickly broke in.

“Your dad isn’t dead,” he said quickly. Justin set his hand on Jason’s arm and then looked at Trent.

“But he is in a coma,” he said.

“Why?”

“Best guess?” Justin asked. Trent nodded. “He was in pain, trying to find a temporary cure, and broke.”

“Will Doctor O be okay?” Kira asked when it was clear Trent wasn’t going to be able to. Conner wrapped an arm around Trent’s shoulders.

“Do they need help?” Ethan asked. “I can help.”

“Sure,” Justin assured him.

“So, we’ve lost our powers, Doctor O is in a coma, and we don’t know how to fix this?” Conner asked.

Jason paused and then answered. “Billy thinks that they were on the right track. The only thing that broke was the Dino gem which isn’t corrupted in the way the rest of the powers were. If Hayley agrees and the other techs think it will work, we’re going to try to merge the Powers together and hopefully heal him.”

“What if it doesn’t work?” Conner asked. There was silence. “Hey! What if it doesn’t work?”

Justin looked at Jason and then back at Conner. “It could kill him.”

“Is there anything we can do?” He asked. 

“Stay with him,” Justin said. “And let him know you care.”

“What about the city?” Kira asked. “Without our powers, we can’t defend it.”

“Once a Ranger, Always a Ranger. Remember that, Kira,” Jason said firmly. “And we already have a solution to that.”

***

Aisha was taking the ninja kids back to lair so that they stayed safe. While ninjas could take care of themselves, they couldn’t self-heal. The four Zeo Rangers and the five Aquitian Rangers, however, had caught up with Elsa and her power-stealing monstrosity and were rather enjoying fighting alongside each other. Kat felt the amusement at the showing off that was going on from Rocky and the more subdued version of Tideus. Both were serious in what they were doing, but there was an air of humor as they worked. Corcus and Adam were working together in the more efficient way possible while Cestro watched their back. Delphine and Tanya were working together in another area while Kat was with Aurico. She found his patterns easy to work with.

“So, what are the rules on this?” Rocky finally asked. “I mean, do we just push them back or can we take this monster down?”

“Push it back for now,” Adam said. “If it grows, it would be good for the Dino Thunder Rangers to call their Zords right away.”

“Adam is right,” Delphine agreed. “We should let them handle it.”

Elsa wasn’t stupid and dragged the monster away while she tried to come up with a better plan. Kat felt a bit of amusement when she realized that Elsa was having to figure out how to deal with a bunch of former Rangers that she’d never even met. On the other side, however, Anton had met them and that meant that Mesagog might be able to figure out a way to make things more difficult. Yet, this time, it didn’t take long before the villains retreated and they were able to head back to the house, but Kat felt better than she had in years at the Power that had rushed over her. It was like a comforting blanket had wrapped around her once again and she realized that she’d missed it.

***

“Got them!” Aisha called out as she entered into the Lair with five ninja students. Each of them were wearing the blue stripes of water ninjas. The quartet looked over.

Conner blinked in surprise. “Tally?” He asked one of the students. She beamed at him and pulled him into a hug. “I thought you got expelled when Erik did.”

“I did,” she said. “I also reapplied and promised to try harder. When Sensei Hanson asked for volunteers, I had to come help.”

He returned the hug and pulled back as they smiled at each other. “Right now, we can use all of the help we can get.”

She nodded and stepped back with the other students. Trent felt oddly better about it and he squeezed Conner’s hand to tell him. Conner offered him a reassuring smile and Trent wasn’t sure why he felt better about it. Conner hadn’t exactly been quiet about his brother’s expulsion to the others, but there was a sense of relief that someone who had a person stake in it, even a low personal stake.

When the Aquitians and Zeo returned, the ninjas went to work on checking on the Aquitians while Adam helped with the final preparations. Billy looked at the rest of Rangers. “I need your morphers.”

There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation. All of them handed them over including Dino Thunder, though Ethan looked at Billy. “They still don’t work.”

“The Power is still there,” he promised. He set the morphers in a line, one after the other until they connect with Tommy’s. Only Dino Thunder’s morphers were on the other side to help balance what was left of Tommy’s gem. Billy looked at the group as they all stood ready and nodded to Hayley. She reached over and pushed the button, watching all of them. If they were right, it would help Tommy. If they were wrong, she’d need to stop it as quickly as she could before any other Ranger went comatose. The only Rangers unlikely to have problems were the Aquitians who were acting as a grounding method. The Power raced through the morphers.

There wasn’t any pain this time, though all of the Rangers did seem to fall unconscious and glowed their first bonded color. After a minute, the black Dino Thunder gem lifted off the table it had been on and the pieces swirled around the room, collecting Power from each of the Rangers before stopping in front of her. _Hold out your hand._

She quickly did as she was told and the pieces landed in her hand as they reconnected themselves. _Remember, Hayley, that the Power is all connected, but it is the Rangers themselves that gives it life. And that it’s people like you that help connect them. Jason said earlier “Once a Ranger, Always a Ranger”, but that doesn’t just apply to Power Rangers themselves. You may not be a Ranger, but you are of the Power as much as them._

“I don’t understand,” she said. There was a warm feeling surrounding her which she held on to.

“When I saved Tommy that last battle, I accidentally ended up separating him from the others. I hadn’t had time to be more careful and he was hurt because of it. I can make it right now, Hayley, but I need someone who understands this in the future. Someone who can make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

“Why not Billy? Or Justin?” She suggested.

“Because they’re not conscious enough to hear me right now. And because they didn’t have to stand by Tommy and watch as he was separated from his family.”

“Show me,” she said. And the information poured through her. She understood everything that had happened, even if she couldn’t replicate it. She could make sure that if this ever happened again, they could fix it before it became a problem. Billy had been mostly right, but he would have been the first to admit that it was still a theory. What ran through her head now were the specifics which she quickly took in.

_Well done._

“Did you want me to tell them anything?”

_I’m proud of them. And I’m proud of you. May the Power protect you all._

With that, the voice was gone and the gem in her hand was perfect once more. The information she’d gotten allowed her to help the other Rangers wake up without any pain and she waited when she looked at Tommy. Sure enough, even his eyes were starting to flicker. She set the gem in his hand as the others were getting back up and heading over themselves.

“Hayley?” He asked. “What happened?”

“You’re an idiot,” she said. “But you’re going to be okay.”

Tommy looked confused, but finally noticed all of the Rangers around him. It took a minute of silent panic before he realized that he wasn’t in pain anymore. He relaxed for a minute before closing his eyes and trying to take everything in. He wasn’t sure what had happened, but he needed a few minutes before he found out.


	17. Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mess with one member of the family, mess with all of them.

Trent had been the first to reach him, of course, but then the others followed suit. Conner, Kira, and Trent were less physical about it, though there were quicker hugs and Hayley squeezed his hand. Then the other Rangers got involved. Kim was there first, nearly tackling him in a hug as she’d been wanting to do since the entire thing started. Jason was second and pulled him into a hug of his own. Both were relieved at the lack of pain this time. Zack and Rocky gave him enthusiastic hugs while Adam clasped his hand and pulled him into a quick embrace. Kat and Trini were friendly but gentle with their hugs while Aisha and Tanya were both firm in theirs. Justin walked up to Tommy and the two paused before Justin pulled Tommy to him and all of the left over worries Justin had fell away.

Finally, he faced Billy. The two looked at each other for a minute, neither quite sure what to say at this point. It had been a long road getting there, but there was guilt on both sides. Finally, Tommy spoke up. “I’m sorry I tricked you.”

“I’m sorry you felt you had to,” Billy answered. “And I’m sorry for…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Tommy said forcefully. “I didn’t blame you.”

“I blamed myself,” Billy said. Tommy nodded.

“I know,” he said. “What are you going to do now that you can’t be obsessed finding me a cure?”

“I will continue to assist Aquitar in healing as well as coming back to spend time with my nephew,” Billy said and Tommy looked surprised. “The teleportation system we set up seems to be working, though a few more tests are needed. The Aquitian Rangers and I took a bit of a chance with it to get here. When testing is complete, we will be able to come and go as necessary.”

“So, even if you’re off world, you’ll still be able to come when you want?” Tommy asked. Billy nodded. Delphine gave Tommy a polite turn of the head.

“As will we,” she said. “While the ninjas have been kind to help us, we would be able to return home when we felt dehydrated. We would like to take more time to know our Earth Ranger friends.”

“We feel the same way,” Tommy assured her. “Trent! Come and meet you Aunt Delphine, Uncle Cestro, Uncle Aurico, Uncle Tideus, and Uncle Corcus.”

Trent did with a smile. “Thanks for coming to help my dad.”

“It is our pleasure,” Delphine assured him.

“I hate to interrupt,” Hayley cut in. “But we still have a crazed villain out there and the Dino Thunder Rangers don’t have their powers.”

“How did we lose our powers?” Tommy asked.

“You still have yours,” Conner said. “Ours got absorbed.”

“It seems to be connected to the gems and canceled them out,” Hayley answered. Rocky grinned.

“So, let’s go show Mesagog why he doesn’t mess with our family,” he said. There were some cheers as Tommy looked at him.

“You do remember that Mesagog is Anton, right?” He asked. Rocky paused and looked at Conner.

“Who was next to the monster?” He asked.

“Elsa.”

“Okay. Let’s go show Elsa why she doesn’t mess with our family!” He said again. There was a roar of cheering and soon they were headed for the door. The Dino Thunder Rangers raced after as they wanted to watch. They arrived to where Elsa and the monster were waiting. Tommy, Jason, and Delphine took to the front. Elsa looked a little confused, but Tommy spoke up first.

“You take on one Ranger,” he said.

“You take on us all,” the rest of the Rangers called. Jason took a step forward.

“It’s Morphin Time!” He called out.

“Mastodon!”

“Pterodactyl!”

“Triceratops!”

“Sabertooth Tiger!”

“Tyrannosaurus!”

“Black Power Ranger Power!”

“Yellow Power Ranger Power!”

“Red Power Ranger Power!”

“Zeo Ranger 1, Pink!”

“Zeo Ranger 2, Yellow!”

“It’s Morphin Time!” Delphine called out after. “White Aquitar Ranger Power!”

“Black Aquitar Ranger Power!”

“Blue Aquitar Ranger Power!”

“Yellow Aquitar Ranger Power!”

“Red Aquitar Ranger Power!”

Justin stepped forward a bit. “Shift into Turbo!” He called out, morphing to join them.

“Dino Thunder. Power up!” Tommy finished.

“Power Rangers!” They all called out together. Elsa just stared at them for a minute and the monster looked at her.

“Well?” She demanded. “Get them!”

The minute he wasn’t by her side anymore, she backed up a bit and sent Tyrannodrones to help out. To her surprise, Dino Thunder joined the fray to push the Tyrannodrones back. It wasn’t a long fight. The monster quickly fell and four more morphing calls hit the air as the rest of Dino Thunder appeared. Elsa turned to run, but Trent got in her way.

“Tommy?” Hayley called. “Can all of you get her back down here safely? I think I might have a way to help her.”

“Got it,” he said. “Hey! No destroying.”

The other Rangers nodded but the distraction had been all she needed. Before they could stop her, she was gone. Tommy reached back to his wrist. “She got away.”

“We’ll get her next time,” Hayley assured him. He just nodded as the group headed out of the street and back home, demorphing once they were far enough away and cheering the entire time.

“How long are you guys staying?” He asked Jason. Jason looked surprised.

“Until we get your husband back,” he answered. Tommy took his turn to look surprised. “We’re here with you, Bro.”

“Thanks,” Tommy said and looked over the group. They just had to bring home one more family member and everything would be perfect.


	18. Hiding the Hickeys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trent has a slight problem.

Rocky was the first to notice that something was off. He wasn’t sure what it was at first, but something was definitely getting to him. It took him a few more times before he figured out that Trent had a hickey. It didn’t bother him at all, but he did pull Trent aside after breakfast, looking to see if anyone else noticed. When no one said anything, he relaxed a bit before he spoke up. “Out late?” He asked calmly. Trent blinked but nodded.

“We were studying,” he said. Rocky snorted.

“Before or after you were making out?” He asked, motioning to his neck. Trent’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to say something, but Rocky cut him off.

“It’s fine, Trent,” he said. “You’re nearly eighteen.”

“So you’re not going to tell Dad?” He asked hopefully.

“I’m going to help you hide it from your dad,” Rocky assured him. At Trent’s surprised look, Rocky smiled. “Tommy overreacts. Are you being safe?”

“Yes,” Trent said.

“Do you have any questions?”

“God, no,” Trent answered. Rocky laughed.

“Then don’t worry about it.”

“What about the hickey?” He asked. 

“We’ll just have to try to get rid of it,” Rocky said determinedly.

“How?”

“With a spoon.”

***

“It’s not working,” Trent whispered loudly to Rocky as his panic deepened. They’d been trying the cold method for some time, but it didn’t seem to be making a dent. They weren’t exactly being subtle about it, so Rocky wasn’t really that shocked when Adam looked over at them. He headed over causally and motioned to the door. The three of them headed out and Adam looked over Trent, sighed, and folded his arms.

“Cold method didn’t work?” He asked. Trent just looked at him. “Tommy overreacts. Rocky knows this. He also knows that the cold method doesn’t work some of the time, but he still tries it first.”

“What do I do?” Trent asked.

“You keep up with cold method, but in between you’re going brush it with a spare toothbrush,” he explained. Trent nodded.

“That’ll work?” He asked. Rocky shrugged.

“It’s worth a try!”

***

By eleven o’clock, Trent was starting to worry. They had training at eight that night and Adam had forcefully informed him that Tommy wasn’t going to buy that he got kicked in the throat when Tommy fought alongside him. So, when Kat sat down next to him, he was a little jumpy. “A pen cap,” she said without preamble.

“Huh?” He asked.

“Zack and I always use to use a pen cap to hide ours so they don’t show up when we’re dancing,” she said, motioning toward his neck. He sighed.

“I tried the cold thing and the brush thing,” he told her.

“Try this. You massage the area with it,” she said. “It might work.”

“Did it work for you?”

“Some of the time,” she said honestly. “Zack’s getting him out of the house today, so you’ll have some time. We all know that Tommy tends to overreact a bit.”

“Thanks,” he said honestly. She just smiled.

***

Justin laughed at him so hard over the whole thing that he lost his balance and Trent pushed him the rest of the way onto the couch. Justin was a jerk.

***

Tanya smiled a bit as she gave him the tube of toothpaste which was probably because he was just staring at her in disbelief. “It really does work,” she said. “It’s a bit embarrassing to try to explain to your mentor how you got marks on your neck.”

“How did you?” He asked.

“Alpha asked, Zordon changed the subject,” she answered. “I don’t think he wanted to know.”

Trent nodded. “This really might work?”

“It helps break up the clot,” she answered. “Rub it on, wait for the tingling to stop…”

“There’s tingling?!” Trent asked.

“Good tingling,” she promised. “Then wipe it off with water. Only do it twice.”

Trent just nodded, looking at the toothpaste with some suspicion.

***

Aisha gave her opinion as an argument with Tanya. She turned to Trent. “I’m telling you: The coin trick works.”

“The coin trick hurts,” Tanya said. “That’s why I suggested the less painful one.”

“Right now, I don’t care how much it hurts,” Trent interjected. “How do I do the coin one?”

“You put it to your skin and scrape the skin,” Aisha said. “From the center to the edge.”

“Okay,” Trent answered. “But won’t that make it worse?”

“It shouldn’t! It will look worse for a little bit, but it should clear up after,” she answered. “And don’t worry. We’ll handle Tommy until it’s done. He so overreacts.”

“He’s not that bad,” Tanya said, trying to defend their former leader, but both Trent and Aisha’s disbelief made her sigh. “He could be worse.”

Trent headed off to give the coin a shot.

***

“Aloe Vera,” Billy told him when he ran to the genius after nothing else worked. “But it most likely won’t work. It’s too late after.”

“What did you used to do?” Trent asked.

“Nothing,” Billy answered. Trent blinked and Billy coughed.

“I made certain not to get hickeys in visible areas,” he said. “You might want to talk with Jason. I am assuming that Zack is still keeping Tommy from finding out so that none of us have to deal with his extreme overreaction?”

“Yep,” Trent said. Billy nodded.

“Then Jason may have an idea.”

***

Jason looked up from the card game he was playing with Justin with a smile. “My turn?” He asked teasingly. Justin wasn’t bothering to hold back his snickering.

“Please?” Trent asked. Jason nodded and motioned with his head, leading him down the hall.

“None of that stuff worked for me either,” he said. “So, I finally figured out that I can’t get rid of it…”

He knocked on the bathroom door where Kim motioned them in. Trent looked at Jason who waved toward Kim. “You hide it.”

“Hide it?”

“Kim knows what she’s doing,” Jason assured him. “She hid mine for years.”

“Make-up,” Trent finally said, understanding.

“Exactly,” Kim said. “Now, let’s get the color right or he’ll notice.”

Trent watched with interest as she blended the colors together just as he did when he was drawing. He knew better than to interrupt an artist with their work, but he did notice that she slowed a bit to let him watch. She applied the make up soon after, making certain to touch it up and had Jason look at it as well. He nodded his approval and Trent relaxed.

“Thanks,” he said honestly. Kim smiled and Jason nodded.

“Don’t worry,” Jason said. “You know better for next time.”

Trent relaxed and gave a quick nod before heading out toward where the others were. Justin sat down next to him and ignored Trent’s dirty look. “Feel better?”

“You were no help,” Trent grumbled. Justin patted his shoulder in response as Tommy got home. Trent saw the look that Zack shot to Jason, who subtly nodded and he relaxed. Tommy was in the kitchen when the other three Rangers arrived.

“Hey Trent!” Conner said, tossing him his jacket. “You left it in my room.”

Trent caught it. “Thanks.”

“No problem, Dude. You seemed pretty out of it when we were finished last night,” Conner said.

“Finished what?” Tommy asked as he headed back into the room.

“School stuff,” Kira said quickly.

“Ranger stuff,” Ethan said just as quickly.

“Definitely not necking,” Conner tried to help. Trent just groaned.

“What?!” Tommy asked. He turned on his son, but Jason quickly intervened.

“How about everyone takes the night off?” He suggested. Kim quickly came to his aid.

“We haven’t been able to spend time with you since you woke up,” she agreed. “If Mesagog attacks, we’ll deal with that, but let’s go out for drinks.”

“What about Trent?” Tommy asked. Zack shrugged.

“You guys using condoms?” He asked Conner, certain he’d get the quickest answer from him.

“Always, Dude!” He promised. Zack nodded.

“They’re fine,” he assured him. Tommy gave him a look of disbelief, but Billy gave him a look.

“Unless you’re saying there’s something wrong with having sexual intercourse while the fate of the planet is at stake,” he said, giving a look toward both Kim and Kat. Tommy shut his mouth, but glared at his old teammate. Zack clapped his hands together and grinned as Rocky followed suit. Rocky clapped Justin on the shoulder.

“So, you’re in charge while we’re gone,” he said. “Make sure they don’t sleep in Tommy’s bed.”

Trent groaned even harder as Justin rolled his eyes and pointed to the door where the others herded Tommy out. He turned to the other four. “No sex while I’m in the house.”

“Deal,” Trent said quickly. Conner shrugged.

“We had a good time last night,” he said easily. “And it’s rude if you don’t have someone.”

Trent relaxed a bit, hoping that the others could help calm his dad down before his eyes widened and he looked at the others. “We need to be more careful.”

“Why?” Conner asked. “Doctor O knows now and Hayley gave us the safe sex speech like a week ago.”

“Because only one of my dads knows,” he said. There was a pause before Kira caught on, her eyes widening.

“Do you think he’d care?” She asked. Trent thought about the creature that had invaded his father’s mind. There was a possibility that Anton would have been annoyed, but Tommy had always been the one he’d worried about. With Mesagog, he was less certain.

“I don’t want to find out,” he said honestly.

“Then we’ll be more careful,” Conner said, pushing his leader voice into it. Justin watched from a distance, promising himself that if it became an issue, he’d take care of Mesagog if he had to, Anton be damned. He wasn’t going to lose Trent. He motioned toward the couch, amused when they started to argue about what to watch and slipped in a movie when they weren’t looking before relaxing in the biggest chair while the other four curled up on the couch and on the floor next to it. He just smiled.


	19. Drinks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Distracting Tommy isn't always easy, but someone has to do it.

“They were necking!” Tommy exclaimed for the fifth time. Kim had been keeping track as she’d been sipping on her drink. Jason was trying to do some damage control as Billy was just watching in amusement. She couldn’t blame him. Billy had had to deal with Tommy in both of his relationships with Pink Rangers so this was a form of payback that he didn’t have to feel guilty about.

“They’re teenagers,” Jason said. “And at least they’re being safe about it.”

“I think it’s sweet,” Aisha said, resting her head on Tanya’s shoulder.

“He’s my son!” Tommy snapped. Tanya paused before she gently spoke up.

“Do you trust Conner, Ethan, and Kira?” She asked.

“Of course,” he said.

“Then this is the best relationship you could hope for,” she said. “Try to be happy for him.”

“I am but…” he stopped himself from talking, but Jason pushed it with a nod. “He’s all I have left from Anton.”

“I’m telling Hayley,” Zack teased and Tommy gave him a look.

“I love Hayley,” he said. “But she’s not my wife or son. Losing her would be a different kind of pain.”

“Try not to think you’re losing him,” Trini said, her quiet voice somehow making it over the noise of the bar. “You’re gaining three more people into your family. Two more sons. A daughter.”

“If it works out,” Tommy grumbled. Kat reached over and squeezed his hand.

“Do you hate Kim and I?” She asked. His eyes widened and he shook his head. “Then even if it does end, that doesn’t mean they won’t be family anymore. You’re not going to lose Trent and you won’t lose Conner, Ethan, nor Kira.”

Zack slipped in next to her having taken his turn to pay for the drinks. “He’s terrified he’s going to lose you,” he said wrapping an arm around Kat’s waist as she leaned into him. “So I don’t think he’s going to take off.”

There was a silence between them that carried on after that as the unspoken knowledge of Anton’s death and Tommy was quiet for a minute. Zack looked at all of them and leaned back. “So, Kat and I are getting married.”

“What?” Kim asked and Tanya looked hurt.

“When were you going to tell me?” She asked. Kat looked at them with a smile.

“The next time we were all together again. I just didn’t expect that to be when Tommy got hurt,” she said and gave Zack a glare. “Nor did I expect it to be in a bar.”

“It’s a fancy bar,” Zack argued, looking at his friends for help.

“A very fancy bar,” Rocky said quickly.

“More like a lounge,” Adam agreed.

“A nice lounge,” Jason said. Tommy shrugged.

“The drinks have fancy names,” he offered. All of the girls were snickering at this point and Billy rolled his eyes, waving the Aquitian Rangers over as they headed in. Delphine took a place beside the other girls while the other four mingled. Delphine looked over at Tommy.

“Billy informed us that we needed to come and help distract you from the unfortunate situation of finding your child has coupled,” she said. She looked at the others and then back at Tommy. “This is normally a happy situation on Aquitar.”

“We brought you presents,” Tideus said cheerfully, handing one over that was messily wrapped. At Tommy’s confused look, Tideus just looked a bit apologetic. “We do not have ‘wrapping paper’ on Aquitar.”

“Right,” Tommy said quickly. The other four set theirs down in turn. All of them took their seats again and Zack spoke up.

“Are their presents every time or just the first time?” He asked. All of the Earth Rangers just turned at looked at him. “I’m planning on having kids someday.”

“Just the first,” Delphine explained. “Either when a child couples or stated that they are choosing to never partake in physical coupling.”

“Uh, what?” Rocky asked, a bit confused. Billy spoke up.

“A person who is asexual and doesn’t have sex,” he explained. “Coupling is considered a mark of adulthood, but it’s equally a mark when the person knows themselves enough to know that sex isn’t an option for them. So, presents are given to the parents for both.”

Tommy ripped into the presents and found some of his favorite foods, a toy version of his son’s dinosaur and several books on archeology. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” Aurico said. “We are happy to be able to be a part of helping you forget.”

It was a bit sardonic and Aurico’s eyes showed his humor. Delphine managed to keep a straight face and Tideus had to cover his version of a snicker. Tommy gave the Red Aquitian Ranger a look. “Thanks,” he said sarcastically.

“I think we need more drinks,” Billy said easily.

“I’ll help you carry them,” Kim said and looked back at the Aquitians. “Just water?”

“It would be best,” Delphine agreed. Kim nodded and followed Billy. Tommy looked at them.

“Water?”

“Alcohol dehydrates,” Delphine reminded him. “Kimberly and I talked about it for some time one day.”

“Kim kept in contact with Billy the most,” Jason reminded him.

“We have gotten to have many conversations with her,” Corcus said politely. “A few with you as well, Jason.”

Jason gave back a nod and Tommy looked at his best friend with interest. Jason shot one back that told him to drop it. Tanya rested in her chair as she took control of the situation. “I’ve been looking forward to this.”

“To coming to a bar… er… lounge?” Tommy asked, careful not to upset Kat.

“To being all together again,” she answered. “I would have loved to be at your reception.”

“It was a beautiful wedding,” Kat agreed.

“I thought the dinosaurs were a nice touch,” Tideus agreed. Tommy looked surprised. “Billy brought back the footage for us to see.”

“Did anyone call Hayley?” Kim asked as she handed out the drinks as Billy held them. Tommy smiled a bit at that.

“I think she’s taking some alone time. She hasn’t been able to since Trent lost his parents,” he reminded them. They all winced.

“I thought she had her own house,” Adam said with a frown. Tommy looked sheepish.

“She hasn’t been in it often,” he admitted.

“Well, she has us to distract you now,” Zack said. “To distracting Tommy!”

“To distracting Tommy!” The others joined in. Tommy groaned.

“Remind me why I wanted to see all of you again?” He muttered, but even if he wouldn’t admit it, he hadn’t been happier in a long time.


	20. Balloons

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is made.

Billy nodded at Hayley’s results, looking them over and quietly asking Trent a question here and there. Justin sat nearby, throwing in an opinion when he had one and keeping Trent calm. Adam stood on the other side, giving Billy a sounding board that could actually understand what was being said. Trini was conferring with Hayley and heading back to tell the others so that they would stay out of the way.

“What’s the decision?” Tommy asked Trini finally. She sighed.

“The less scientific way of looking at what’s wrong is like a balloon. The outer part being Mesagog and the air being Anton,” she explained. “When they first started, Anton was probably in charge more often, but that was also when he was injured. By the time he was well enough, that was when Mesagog was able to create Elsa.”

“So, how much time is left?” Kim asked.

“Not much,” Trini said. “They’re trying to create something that would split them in two, but they have to be careful or we’ll end up with just Mesagog.”

“Can we do anything?” Conner asked, folding his arms. Trini looked over. “We’re not great at just sitting around. We could go throw eggs into an invisiportal until he comes out.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” Trini said politely. Tommy had to hand it to her. Trini was unflappable right now. “For now, just keep doing what you’ve been doing.”

Tommy frowned, but nodded. He glanced back to see that Cestro had joined the group, fresh from getting replenished by the ninjas and gave some ideas from Aquitar as well. He tried to relax a bit. The best minds he knew were working on this. He just had to trust that they’d succeed.

***

“You know, we should have guessed that Principal Randall was Elsa,” Conner said out of nowhere. Trent wasn’t the only one who turned and looked at him in confusion. “I mean, she was kinda evil.”

Ethan nodded at that. “Yeah, but if we didn’t know before, Doctor O and her fighting in the middle of the school might have been a tip off.”

“Doctor O isn’t going to lose his job over it, is he?” Kira asked and Trent shook his head.

“A bunch of the guys came to tell me that the official story is Principal Randall was evil and attacked Dad who was trying to protect them,” he said. “They are making him out to have done worse than he did because it will hide the Ranger part better.”

“So, everyone knows about Doctor O too?” Conner asked in surprise. Ethan rolled his eyes.

“Yeah,” he said. “You didn’t notice that Allison gets up at the same time we do when we all have to take off? She’d been covering for him all year.”

“Huh,” Conner said. “Well, that explains why she winces when people get stuff wrong in class.”

Kira rolled her eyes, Ethan held back his snicker, and Trent patted him on the back. Before they could do anything else, however, their morphers beeped, calling them back to the Lair.

***

In order to not be tripping over everyone, there was a schedule set in place of who was to be around and who wasn’t. One ninja was on duty at all times in the Lair for the Aquitians in case of emergency. With the ability to do so, they had set up teams around the clock which allowed for a constant technologically inclined person and a group to both help out the Dino Thunder Rangers and keep the Tech from wearing themselves out. It was a good system. While Dino Thunder fought the good fight, the others supported them from the back. It just didn’t seem to be getting them anywhere.

Trent leaned back against the wall as he watched Hayley work. They weren’t fighting, his homework was done, and unlike the others, he lived here. “Trent.”

He looked up to see Tally and Corcus looking down at him. He scrambled to his feet. “Sorry, did you need something?” He asked. Tally shook his head.

“We thought you might want to go for a walk,” she said. “You need out of here,” she said. He nodded and the three headed out the door to walk around the woods. Tally and Corcus were right. He was stressed out and he probably should stay somewhere else, but everywhere reminded him of what had happened. Out here, it was the only place that didn’t have memories. He loved his teammates, but school and especially the café reminded him of losing his dad and the silent fear that they might not be able to get him back.

“When I was young, before I coupled, Aquitar was attacked,” Corcus said out of nowhere. Trent turned to look at him, but Corcus was just staring upward. “It was quick, but a lot of damage happened. We lost a lot of people. I could not find my parents anywhere but I did pull a boy younger than I out of the way and eventually we were found. Later that day, I was told my father had died. On that same day, I was told I was to succeed as Black Aquitian Ranger.”

Trent was silent and Tally just waited. He wondered if she’d heard this story before or if she’d heard once similar, but she wasn’t reacting other than with calm sympathy. Corcus continued. “My mother was injured. I trained, prepared, and waited until I was old enough for my morpher. She woke up a year before I succeeded and was very proud, but I was not. The two things were connected.”

“Then why did you agree to be the Black Aquitian Ranger?” He asked.

“I remembered the Aquitian I had saved and wanted to help more of us. When I met the other members of my team, even before we had been given our morphers, I wanted to help them,” he said. “There is pain but also good. Try to look for the good.”

“What about the pain?” He asked. “And the fear?”

“Trust your team to stand with you,” he answered. “And trust us.”

Trent nodded and there was silence once more. Tally gave Corcus some water soon after. He looked over at her. “Did you lose someone?”

“No,” she said honestly. “But Erik told me that Conner was his brother and Erik is my family. So is Kyle. Which makes you family.”

“I don’t even know Erik,” he admitted. She smiled.

“Then you can meet him when everything’s better,” she said. “He’d like to meet the guy dating his brother.”

“Ethan and Kira are dating him too,” Trent said quickly.

“Then he’ll want to meet all of you,” she said. Trent took a minute before he laughed. She looked at him questioningly.

“I’m an orphan who lost half of my adoptive parents and have the biggest family anyway,” he said. “I have aunts and uncles from different planets, ninja siblings, a Zord my father left me, and Aunt Hayley.”

There was a pause before Tally laughed with him. A quiet distorted noise caused them to turn to see the amusement on Corcus’ face as well. Corcus looked at him. “When I was preparing,” he said. “I would not have expected to have a human nephew.”

Trent grinned and smiled at Tally who looked at him seriously. “So, I haven’t been able to talk to him too much, but is Conner as big of an airhead as Erik?”

Trent just laughed.

***

“Got it!” Hayley called out, holding up the cannon-like weapon and being careful not to point it at anyone. She rushed to the stairs, calling upward. “Justin! Billy! Wake up! I got it!”

Billy was down the stairs almost before she finished. Justin was on his heels. Tommy stumbled down a little while later looking less than pleased. “This is why Reefside has hotels. So I’m not woken up at four in the morning, tripping over Zack,” he grumbled. Hayley ignored him and handed it over to Billy who looked it over. Justin stood behind him, looking over his shoulder and nodding as Billy fiddled with it. “I would say that other than testing, which we agreed was not possible at this time, we have a successful machine.”

“I was thinking about that,” Justin said. “Why don’t we try it on the Tyrannodrones?”

There was a paused and Hayley looked thoughtful. “Will that work? Tommy and Anton built them, not Mesagog.”

“It should,” Justin said. “Since Tommy said that they weren’t all bad to begin with.”

“Are you ever going to let that go?” Tommy grumbled. 

“You made putties!” Billy, Justin, and Hayley all said together. Tommy decided now was a good time to stay out of it.

“Most likely, Mesagog did the same to them that he did to Elsa,” Justin answered. “So, we test it on a few Tyrannodrones, see if we can fix Elsa, and get back Anton.”

Hayley and Billy looked at each other and nodded. Tommy looked at Justin. “What if it does work?” He asked. “What are we going to do with a Tyrannodrone?”

“Dibs,” Justin said. At Tommy’s look, Justin pouted. “Trent got his dinosaur.”

“Is this about the raptor?”

“Microraptor and yes,” Justin said. Tommy rolled his eyes.

“It’s a Zord, Justin. And Anton did it. Not me.”

“That’s fine, but I’m keeping the Tyrannodrone.”

“Guys?” Hayley finally cut in. “We don’t even know what this thing will do to a Tyrannodrone. What are they made out of?”

“The same things as everything else. Technology and dinosaur DNA,” Tommy said tiredly.

“What’s going on?” They all looked over to see Trent in the doorway.

“Hey Trent,” Justin said. “We finished.”

“So we can get Dad back?” He asked.

“We need to test it first,” Justin answered. “On a Tyrannodrone.”

“Okay. Let’s do that,” he said. “Why are we waiting?”

The conversation ceased and Hayley began to look for any disturbances. Tommy gave Justin a look that said the conversation was over that Justin promptly ignored, but there was a plan in place. They just needed to see if it would work.

***

They’d used the Raptor Riders, Storm Blaster, and several weapons, but they’d managed to drag one of the drones home. The rest had been taken care of by the Dino Thunder Rangers and they’d had the raptors to pin the drone to the ground and then drag it back to the car. Justin had taken it from there. They didn’t want Mesagog to know they had this until they didn’t have a choice which meant until they tried it on Elsa. 

They got the thing into the lab and waited until the Dino Thunder Rangers came back. Hayley picked it up with Billy’s help while Justin stayed morphed in case it got loose. The cannon went off and the drone screeched. Everyone in the lab paused and waited, worried at what would happen as the technology was forced away along with the darkness and power that Mesagog had put into it. When it finally stopped screeching, there was a very confused little dinosaur in front of them. Everyone in the lab just stared at it for a minute in surprise before Justin finally spoke up. “That’s not a biozord.”

“No its not,” Tommy agreed. Kira just looked at her teacher.

“Did we just bring back a dinosaur?”

“Just one,” he argued.

“It works,” Billy said sardonically and Tommy looked at him. “It did exactly what we want it to do with Mesagog and Elsa.”

There was some goop on the floor, but that was it. “So, Doctor O, what is it?” Conner finally asked, carefully moving toward it.

“Dangerous! Conner, don’t touch it!” Tommy snapped. Conner pulled his hand back, but the dinosaur came toward him and chirped. “It’s an Aviatyrannis.”

“It’s related to Tyrannosaurus?” Ethan said, keeping his own hands back as Conner was still kneeled down and took out one of his shoelaces swishing it back and forth before the little dinosaur pounced it.

“Yes,” Tommy said. “Conner!”

“What?” Conner asked. “We trained the Zords.”

“Well, yes…”

“And the raptors,” he said.

“I tamed them, but I suppose…”

“And this little guy was created the same way,” he said. “So, he’s sorta like his big brothers and sisters.”

“She,” Kira said firmly. They looked at her. “Until we sex it, it’s a girl. I’m tired of Hayley and I being outnumbered.”

“I’ll second that,” Hayley agreed.

“We’ll have to call her something,” Justin said.

“It’s a dinosaur! We can’t just keep a dinosaur!” Tommy exclaimed. Billy put his hand on Tommy’s arm and leaned in.

“Right now,” he whispered. “They only want one. Let them focus on this one dinosaur so they don’t decide they all need one.”

“It’s going to be my responsibility,” Tommy hissed.

“Better than a flock,” Billy answered.

“Fine! But if we keep her, I get to name her,” Tommy snapped. They all turned to look at him. “We’re calling her Dimitria.”

“I thought you didn’t like Dimitria,” Billy whispered.

“I don’t like the dinosaur either,” he grumbled. “And it will make me feel better when I’m yelling at it.”

Billy snickered. “Good luck.”

They spent the rest of the afternoon trying to teach Dimitria how to come, stay, no biting, and cords are not food. By the end of it, all five teens were worn out, Dimitria was worn out and the three adults were worn out. Jason had started down the stairs at one point, took one look at what happened, and headed back up the stairs, keeping the others up there. With the weapon working, the dinosaur sleeping between Trent and Conner, and the beginning of a plan in place, it was time to act.


	21. Yes!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's time to finish the fight against Mesagog.

Justin wasn’t sure whose idea this had been, but he was guessing Tommy’s or Rocky’s or Conner’s. In any case, Operation Get Elsa was going according to plan, but Justin wasn’t so sure that was a good thing. Mostly because the villainess currently had been divebombed by six over enthusiastic Power Rangers to try to get her to a place where they could zap her with the magic cannon and turn her back into a real girl. He was pretty sure Billy or Hayley had had a better plan, but this one had been deemed quicker.

Of course, the downside to the plan was that there was no way to actually aim and shoot which made the entire thing a bit more of a problem than any of them wanted to admit. Justin really just wanted to take off his helmet and rub his temples, but he had a job to do. He tried to get a clear shot. “There are children who want to be you guys. There are comic books, action figures, dolls, costumes in your image,” he informed them. “You’re considered our first line against alien threats. And the master plan was ‘Let’s dog-pile her.’”

“Less judging,” Rocky said. “More shooting.”

Justin rolled his eyes. “If I could see her, I would!” He snapped. Elsa, on the other hand, was swearing up a storm and trying to get away from them. Justin tried to aim properly again, but Aisha fell in his way. When he tried again, Conner fell into view. He was close to throwing his hands up in surrender, but she managed to get through enough for him to shoot her. She screamed out and Justin nearly dropped the gun in horror. No human should ever make a noise like that and he knew it. That said, he could see the effects that Mesagog had had on her falling off of her like a bad sweat. Black ooze crashed onto the ground. After a minute, the rest of it fell away and Elsa looked up at them bleary eyed. She made her way to Justin’s eyes and the two stared for a few minutes at each other as Justin felt more and more uncomfortable as he realized she knew he was responsible. Adam seemed to notice because he quickly spoke up.

“Let’s get her home,” he said. The other Rangers quickly agreed and they headed back to Tommy’s house. None of them were paying too close of attention to anything else or they would have seen Zeltrax following them home.

***

The other Rangers headed back to the hotel they’d been staying at since Tommy’s house was just too small for everyone leaving Hayley, Elsa, Tommy, and Trent alone with the Aquitian Rangers. Everyone had agreed that the Aquitian Rangers shouldn’t stay in hotel rooms. For now, however, they were enjoying the forest outside of Tommy’s house since they didn’t have such things on Aquitar. “Get her off the couch, Trent,” Tommy snapped. Trent rolled his eyes.

“She’s not scratching it,” he said. “She’s fine.”

Dimitria was curled up like a cat next to him as he did his homework. He reached out and petted her every so often and was even more amused when Hayley took pictures because she found it adorable. Tommy, on the other hand, firmly disagreed with letting her stay there. “She’s a dinosaur! That we still aren’t even sure if female!”

“She’s female,” Hayley said. He looked at her. “Kira and I checked.”

“She’s still not a cat,” he argued, but it didn’t help that she seemed content to lie there and only looked up at him so often to chirp.

“She’s a member of the family. Family is allowed on the furniture,” Trent argued.

“She’s a dinosaur!” Tommy tried again, but Trent just faced him down and Tommy sighed, but gave up. He’s try to win it again later. None of it mattered anyway because shortly after, she had hopped off the couch and was chirping at the stairs.

“Dimitria, what’s wrong?” Trent asked. “I just let her out.”

“She probably wants to chew on stuff down there,” Tommy sighed.

“Or something is in the lab,” Hayley said quietly, moving toward where Elsa was sleeping. The last thing they needed was the woman having an even worse care of PTSD. Tommy and Trent looked at each other, nodded, and headed down the stairs only to find it mostly destroyed and Zeltrax in the middle of it. Both Tommy and Trent morphed.

“You know,” Trent said. “I don’t remember you being quite this much of a jerk. I mean, you were but you never destroyed anyone’s stuff. That’s just rude.”

“You stole a gem from your father,” Zeltrax answered.

“Touche,” Trent said.

“Smitty,” Tommy said, trying again. Trent watched him try every time and still wasn’t sure why he bothered. Yes, he had gotten together with Anton, but that meant Smitty had gotten the job. He just waited until Zeltrax attacked and helped his Dad out. “Trent! Get the cannon!”

“Right,” Trent said and made his way over. Zeltrax turned on him only to find himself with Dimitria latched onto to his leg and growling. She hopped away the minute Trent turned the gun on the cyborg and used it. There was a shout of surprise, but no screaming in agony, not pain, and when all was said and done, nothing left. Trent stared at where Zeltrax had been. “Uh… Dad?”

Tommy just wrapped an arm around his son and led him back upstairs. He didn’t want to deal with this and his son shouldn’t have to either. Dimitria just followed. When neither Hayley nor Trent was looking, he tossed her one of the steaks in his fridge and patted her head. The dinosaur mostly ignored him after she was done in favor of going back to sleep on Trent’s lap. Tommy didn’t say a word to stop her.

***

Operation Lure Mesagog Out which had been nicknamed Operation Stupid by Hayley was simple: They knew that Mesagog needed their gems, they knew that he wanted them dead, and they knew that he wouldn’t question why they were going about it this way since he knew Anton was running out of time. So, they went to the quarry, stood outside of it and played the best game of chicken they could manage. “Mesagog!” Tommy called. “Come out!”

“What are you, chicken?” Conner said, trying to help.

“Did you just call him a chicken?” Kira hissed.

“I’m about to call him stupid too,” Conner answered. Tommy gave him a look which Conner promptly ignored. Trent just watched for a portal to open. Sure enough, unorthodox as it was, Conner’s comment seemed to work. The portal opened and Mesagog walked out. Before he could say anything, Tommy took action.

“Now!” Tommy called as Justin and Billy shot Mesagog with the cannon. Mesagog groaned and shifted, but he didn’t fall away to show Anton. Instead, the two seemed to unmerge as Anton fell to the ground out of Mesagog, looked at the Rangers, and passed out. Mesagog turned and looked at the Rangers.

“Thank you for making that so much easier,” he said. He turned to strike down Anton, but Aisha, Adam, and Rocky got their first and pulled him away. Justin motioned to the car while the Dino Thunder Rangers stood ready. “I’ll destroy you first.”

Tommy snorted. “Evil never wins. Besides, this time? We brought company.”

Other than Justin, every other Ranger came out, fully morphed and stood there before posing. Mesagog scowled. “Still around?”

“We’re Power Rangers,” Jason said.

“We’ll always be here to stop you,” agreed Tommy.

“All of us,” Delphine put in.

“You’re history!” Conner finished. With that, they charged against Mesagog in a final fight. He grew and mutated, but the Rangers were having none of it. They stood tall as the villain stood over them. Weapons were called, shots were fired, and the entire thing was done before Justin was even halfway to the cannon. All of the older Rangers agreed the whole thing was rather anti-climactic. It was Ethan who rolled his eyes.

“What if you guys hadn’t been here?” He asked. “I bet it would have been a lot worse then.”

“We would have won,” Conner said confidently. “But probably not as fast.”

“Or as easily,” Kira agreed.

“And who knows how much power we would have used?” Trent answered. “We still have our powers, our zords, everything.”

“We don’t have the Lair,” Tommy grumbled. “Thanks to Smitty.”

“Easy to rebuild, Bro,” Jason assured him. “We couldn’t just let you guys fight alone. We’re family.”

“Then let’s get home,” Tommy said. “And celebrate as a family.”

***

Amidst the chaos that was the Final Battle, Hayley found herself throwing things off of tables to give Justin the room to bring in Anton. She pulled down some blankets from upstairs and kept an eye on the screen as she worked, though she had faith that they would finish this soon. As much as she would have enjoyed an anticlimactic finish, she knew that her family wouldn’t. The minute he was inside, she was checking Anton over.

There wasn’t a lot of damage and she was relieved that their weapon had worked so well. She took brain scans and sent them to Dana who assured her that a lot of it was that Anton’s brain was quietly repairing itself. Mesagog had been a part of him for a while and he needed to rest. She nodded and sat down, holding his hand as she watched the screen. “You missed it, Anton,” she whispered. “Your family fought for you.”

She paused at that and noticed that the other Rangers had moved to the side. She wasn’t sure why, exactly, since there shouldn’t have been anything else to attack them. They’d handled Zeltrax’ break-in before, though Elsa was going to need a lot of therapy. Hayley was already in talks with Zhane to see if the Kerovians could help her. Yet, she wasn’t going to complain. Instead, she turned back to Anton. “When you wake up, I’ll catch you up on everything.”

She barely noticed when they won, though she was glad it was over for now. She knew something else would come up soon enough. Zordon wouldn’t have spoken to her if it hadn’t. Anton and Hayley had been part of Tommy’s world before everything happened, but they’d become his enemy and his Tech respectively and Trent had become a teammate. Whether he liked it or not, the civilian members of Tommy’s life had become Rangers. “We will all help you.”

She felt the squeeze of his grip on her hand and she smiled. “Wake up soon, Anton.”

***

The party wasn’t huge, but it was large enough for the Rangers. Cake had been bought and drinks were handed out, but mostly they were relaxing. In fact, other than Anton who was still mostly asleep, they were just mingling a bit and trying to get past the fact it was over. Jason looked at Tommy. “What are you going to do with Zords?”

“Just let them run around, I guess,” Tommy answered. “They shouldn’t cause problems. When we move back in with Anton, we’ll take the Raptors.”

“We’re keeping the Raptors?” Conner said excitedly.

“What else would be do with them?” Tommy asked. “And somehow, I don’t see you three having the room for them.”

“So, I can visit my Zord?” Trent asked. Tommy sighed.

“We’ve been through this. They’re not pets,” he tried, but Hayley snickered.

“Which is why I’ve caught you outside in the middle of the night grading papers with Brachio?” She asked. Tommy glared at her. “You can’t hide from me.”

“We’ll just wait for Anton to wake up,” Tommy said. “And everything will be perfect.”

Yet, it wasn’t that easy and all of them knew it even if they didn’t say a word to contradict him.


	22. Wooing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Getting Anton back was great, now they just need to keep him.

There were a great many things that Anton needed to get used to again now that he was back, but he hadn’t expected finding Justin on his husband’s couch playing with a small dinosaur. He hadn’t expected to find a dinosaur there either. He sat down in a chair a little further away to watch, but Justin glanced up. “Have you thought about moving in?” Justin asked.

“I can’t,” Anton said. Justin nodded.

“They want you too,” he said. “And Tommy understands how it is to be evil.”

“I’m just not ready to do it,” Anton answered. There was silence between them. “We have a pet dinosaur?”

“Technically, she was supposed to be mine,” Justin said. “But she needs more room to run around and Trent’s pretty attached so I’m not going to take her when we take off.”

“Trent has the Dragozord.”

“I have Storm Blaster.”

“True,” Anton said, holding his hand out. Dimitria rushed over and began sniffing it as well. He looked at Justin. “She’s well behaved.”

“She’s not for Tommy,” Justin said in amusement. “But we think it’s left over from the control you guys put in the Tyrannodrones before they went all crazy.”

There was silence again before Anton spoke up. “There was a biozord for you as well,” he said. Justin looked at him in surprise. “When Tom finally explained to me that he was a Power Ranger, I studied up on the other teams. Time Force had an assistant named Circuit. I thought that the Blue Ranger might like a version of it so I made a microraptor.”

“You thought I was going to be the Blue Dino Thunder Ranger?” He asked.

“Moreso than I thought my husband was going to be the Black Dino Thunder Ranger,” he answered. “With how close Trent and you are, I thought it to be a sound theory. Besides, we needed a template for the Raptor Riders.”

Justin smiled and nodded. “You should take them home.”

“I can’t.”

Justin stood up and clapped Anton on the back. “Give it some time.”

Anton didn’t know how to answer.

***

Tommy glared at Jason. “Explain to be again why everyone is asleep on my floor?” He demanded.

“We were worried something else would happen,” Jason answered. Tommy gave him a look. “And to keep the Dino Thunder kids from interrupting while you seduce your husband.”

“What?”

“Kim said that it took her a bit to convince you to date after you were evil and you didn’t have to worry about a teen son at the time. So, she thought that if we were here, we could distract the kids and push you two out the door to dinner,” he said. Tommy just stared. “It was Kim’s idea.”

“Jason, it’s going to take him some time,” he said. Jason sighed.

“Do you remember when Kim and I were sacrificed to Maligore and attacked all of you,” he asked. Tommy nodded. “We had less than five minutes to deal with it at the time before we needed to help you. And both of us agreed that picking up where we’d left off was a good thing. That doesn’t mean we got over it, but we also didn’t try to push anyone away.”

“I didn’t try to push anyone away,” Tommy said. 

“You did, Bro. We just put up with it,” Jason said. “So, this time, start now. Don’t let him retreat because he’s thinking the same thing you always thought. ‘What happens if I turn evil again?’”

Tommy nodded, but didn’t answer. The last thing Jason needed to hear right now was that for a while, it hadn’t been “What happens if I turn evil again?” but “What happens _when_ I turn evil again?”. And he didn’t have an answer.

***

Trent made it to his dad first while Tommy was still trying to figure out how to help in a way that didn’t scare Anton off. He related what had happened when he’d been a Ranger and explained how he met each of the other Rangers as Anton just sat their patiently. “Dad, there’s something you should know…”

“You’re currently dating all three of them?” Anton asked. Trent blinked. “Mesagog could smell it.”

“Oh. Are you mad?”

“Are you happy?”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m not mad,” Anton assured him. “Trent, when your parents died, I promised to take you in and make sure you were safe, but I want you to be happy.”

“I am,” Trent assured him. “I’d be happier if you let Dad and I move back in with you.”

“Trent, it’s not safe,” Anton said.

“We’re pretty sure he’s gone,” Trent tried, but Anton looked at the ground.

“You didn’t have his thoughts in your head,” he said quietly. “He knew how to hurt Tom. He tried to pull you in because he believed you belonged to him. He thought about the horrible ways he’d kill Hayley and your friends.”

“And he’s gone now,” Trent said. Anton looked unconvinced. “Okay. But you have to promise to visit every day until you’re ready.”

“I promise,” he said, not surprised when Trent hugged him again. “You’re just like your father.”

Trent groaned and Anton gave him a squeeze. “It’s not a bad thing,” he assured him. “Your father is one of the best men I’ve ever met.”

“You’re both the best,” Trent answered. “Don’t leave me again.”

Anton couldn’t make that promise, not with all of the worries in his head, but he didn’t verbalize that either. Instead, he just nodded and Trent relaxed. The two of them were more content for the time being and hoped everything would stay calm for a long time.

***

Tommy managed not to fidget while they were at the table. It was an expensive restaurant. He knew that because Anton’s tastes fell that way and Tommy was polite enough to know that it was rude to ruin that. Not to mention, he was still trying to get Anton to let them come home.

“You’re fidgeting,” Anton said in amusement. “We haven’t even ordered.”

Tommy glared at him. “I don’t like dressing up.”

Anton just smiled. “I missed this.”

“I missed this too. Anton, I’m sorry I didn’t make sure you were safe,” he said.

“Tommy, even if you’d gone back for me, I couldn’t have survived as long as you did. You were able to get away and keep yourself and our son safe,” he said. “I should have let you know about the experiments I was doing.”

“About that,” Tommy said. “What happened?”

“I didn’t know that gems granted super powers. I thought maybe we could distill different parts from dinosaurs and give them through the morphers,” he said.

“And you decided to try it on yourself?”

“Not my best plan, I admit,” Anton said. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m just glad you’re alright,” Tommy said. “And we can be a family again.”

“It’s not safe for you to live with me,” he said. Tommy nodded, though he disagreed.

“Hayley thought maybe a family trip might help,” he said. “She said there’s a carnival in Ocean Bluff.”

Anton smiled. “A carnival?”

“It’s a start,” Tommy said. Anton took his hand.

“It’s a start,” he agreed.


	23. Pillows or Soft Toys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Happy fun time!

“So, how many tickets do we get and do we get money?” Conner asked excitedly. Tommy rolled his eyes at the display.

“You’re invited on the trip,” he said. “You shouldn’t…”

“Here,” Anton said, handing Conner some money with a tight smile. He was trying to make it a genuine one, but it was hard when he was talking to one of the very kids he’d nearly killed. “If you run out, let me know.”

“Thanks, Dr. Mercer!” Conner said cheerfully, looking it over and plotting. Tommy groaned.

“You’re spoiling them,” Tommy grumbled.

“We’re on vacation,” Anton answered.

“You just want them to like you,” he hissed.

“I like him!” Conner said helpfully. At Tommy’s look, he rolled his eyes. “Mesagog sucked. Dr. Mercer doesn’t make me run laps.”

“Conner…”

“It’s okay, Doctor O. I still like you too,” he said. Kira and Ethan were trying not to snicker as Trent had turned his head so that his dads couldn’t see him laughing.

“Conner!” He exclaimed again.

“I need to go win some stuff. Hey Ethan! You in?” He asked. Ethan nodded and started off when Anton spoke up.

“Ethan?” He said. He turned to look at the doctor. “That was just for Conner. Here.”

Ethan looked it over and blinked. “Uh, thanks!” He said. “Are you sure? We can share…”

“I think I can spare it,” he said with a small smile, handing some to Kira as well.

“It’s too much…”

“I tried to kill you.”

“That wasn’t your fault! You couldn’t help it,” she said.

“It will make me feel better,” he said. She looked at the money, set her pride aside, and nodded.

“Are you sure?” She asked.

“Positive,” he answered. She sighed and nodded.

“Thank you,” she said honesty. She looked at Trent who held his up as Tommy gave his husband a dirty look and the quartet took off. Anton ignored him.

“Where’s Hayley?” He asked instead.

“She said she’d meet us here in a bit. She wanted us to have some alone time,” Tommy said. Anton nodded.

“Then let’s do that,” he said. They headed off and enjoyed the artistic part of the fair. Tommy looked over at Anton as they walked by it.

“Trent wants to go into art.”

“Which college?” Anton asked.

“He got accepted in the Art Institute of California in Santa Monica,” Tommy answered. “He didn’t want to be far away from home.”

Anton nodded. “Neither do I,” he admitted. “No more digs for a bit.”

“Are you going to concentrate on your botany?” He asked. Anton nodded. “Good. We could all use the focus on family a bit.”

Anton squeezed his hand. Tommy wasn’t sure if he’d accepted that Tommy wasn’t going to leave or if he was just leaving it alone for now, but either way was working for him. He leaned into Anton who held him close as neither said anything else. He didn’t know how long they were standing there until he heard the quiet entrance cough as they both turned to see Hayley.

“Sorry,” she said. “I should have given you more time…”

“No,” Anton said. “We’re glad you’re here.”

Tommy quickly nodded his agreement. While the other Rangers had jumped at the chance to include her in everything, Hayley was closer to Tommy and Anton. The only other people she’d been so close to were the Fernandezes and Tommy liked to think that Jorge and Hayley would have been laughing in the corner while Catalina tried to quiet them. He really hoped that they would have approved of everything they were doing with Trent. 

They all headed out silently, though they stayed close to each other. None of them were willing to leave the others and no one wanted to speak up and chance for it all to have been a dream. They didn’t have long to do so before the teens came back. Each of them were holding a large version of their own Zord and a smaller version of the others. Trent grinned at Anton. “I never did thank you for giving me my dinosaur.”

Anton smiled. “Of course.”

“Justin is mad that he didn’t get a microraptor,” he said and Anton laughed a bit while Tommy groaned.

“We didn’t make you a pet dinosaur,” he tried but Anton’s eyes sparkled for the first time in days with humor.

“It blew up.”

“What?” Trent asked.

“What?!” Tommy demanded.

“I made Justin a version of the dinosaur that he asked for, but when the island exploded, so did it unfortunately,” he said. When Tommy kept staring, Anton tried not to laugh. “It was a prototype for the Raptor Riders.”

“That’s why you wanted raptors?!” Tommy exclaimed and groaned.

“I was simply fortunate that Justin wanted a smaller version of something I could work with,” Anton answered. “It was less fortunate that it didn’t make it off the island.”

“Have you thought about not spoiling our son and Justin?” Tommy asked.

“No.”

“Why?”

“I enjoy it and now I have three other people to spoil,” Anton said and smiled at Trent. “Tom told me you’re going to Santa Monica.”

“I know it’s not business school or archeology but…” Trent started and Anton held up a hand.

“Mesagog knew the best way to hurt you,” he assured him. “I’m looking forward to seeing what you draw.”

Trent wrapped his arms around his dad and finally let a few of the tears he’d been holding in fall. Anton gripped his son and did the same as Tommy let them go. Hayley and the trio stayed back and pretended not to watch, but there wasn’t a lot of privacy to be given in the middle of a carnival. After a few minutes, Conner spoke up. “We’re glad you’re back, Doctor Mercer.”

Ethan and Kira nodded their agreement and Anton smiled at them. “I’m glad you’re here.”

“And you don’t mind that we’re dating your son?” He asked. Ethan and Kira didn’t nod at that one. They groaned and smacked his arms.

“No, I don’t mind,” Anton answered. “I’m glad he has people who are willing to care about him. Of course, if any of you hurt him, I will have to show you that not all of that menace was Mesagog.”

“Yes, Sir,” Conner said quickly.

“We won’t hurt him,” Ethan agreed just as quickly.

“We love him,” Kira said. Anton nodded.

“I know. I felt the same way toward Tom,” he said and looked at Hayley. “And hopefully, you’ll feel the same way one day.”

“Right now, I’m happy here,” she said. Tommy grinned as he looked over his family. He had the Ranger members of his family back. He had Hayley at his side to help him through the tougher things. He had Anton as his husband for now and forever as they’d been through hell and back and still their love survived. His son was between them. His other surrogate kids were surrounding them. He couldn’t imagine anything better than this. Yes, he still needed to convince Anton that it was safe to move back in, but it was just as side note. It felt right.


	24. Sunrise/Sunset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As one time ends, the beginning of something bigger begins.

Tommy headed into the living room and tripped over Conner. He swore under his breath and turned to see that the others were lying around as well. He made note of where they were and tried to avoid them. He made his way into the kitchen and looked over to see Anton smiling in the chair next to him. Tommy blinked and then joined him. He looked at Anton and had a slight frown. “Are you ready for us to move back in?” He asked. “We could give them their own rooms.”

Anton’s smile faded a bit. “How can you be sure He won’t come back?”

“The same way you’re sure I won’t turn evil,” Tommy answered. “Unless we’re willing to work together, Trent isn’t going to have either of us. You once promised to take Trent and run if I turned evil. I’m making you the same promise. Besides, you’ve been over here far more than you’ve been home.”

“You still think of it as home?” Anton asked. Tommy smiled and took his hand.

“I never stopped,” he said. “So?”

“We will start to move you both back tomorrow,” he assured him and Tommy smiled. It was still a bit of a long road ahead of them, but they would make it if they just worked together. They quietly drank coffee in peace, neither of them really wanting to sleep, when Tommy’s communicator beeped. Both of them looked at each other and headed to where Hayley had set up a video communicator.

He turned it on and waited, Anton standing behind him, as Delphine came onscreen. He smiled at her. “Delphine!” He said. “Social call or…?”

“Unfortunately not,” she answered. “We have a problem. A creature known as Grumm is heading to our section of the galaxy.”

“Do you need help or…?”

“Both of our planets are in the same sector,” she explained. “I was given a communication from the Light Blitz Power Rangers. Sirius was destroyed.”

“What do you need us to do?” He asked. She looked visibly calmer.

“I need you to talk with an old Sirian named Cruger,” she said. “I have spoken with the other Ranger teams. We have made a decision. Several worlds have banded together to create Space Patrol Delta. We have decided to support them under the agreement that a Power Rangers team is part of the unit. We believe Earth is the best candidate for this team due to your planet being the furthest out and due to the Kerovian and Earth Ranger team being the team that finally destroyed Dark Spectre.”

“We’re happy to help,” Tommy assured her. “What do you need us to do?”

“Eight teams would like to meet you,” she answered. “I was hoping you would meet with them.”

Tommy paused and glanced back at Anton before looking at Delphine. “I can’t leave my family.”

“The more Earth Rangers able to talk with them, the better. It will help us all understand each other,” she answered. He nodded.

“We’ll be happy to help,” he assured her. She nodded and moved her hands in the Aquitian greeting and good-bye signal.

“I will be in contact,” she said before hanging up. Tommy looked back toward Anton.

“How do you feel about space travel or at least teleporting?” He asked, squeezing Anton’s hand. Anton didn’t answer, but he did give his husband a kiss. Tommy’s spirit soared. He was able to be near his family, he had his husband, his son was happy, and he was ready to accept that he would always be connected to the Power. He needed to convince his family to help, but he was pretty certain he’d barely be able to get the words out before they agreed. The time of Dino Thunder was over, but it was the dawn of something even greater: The alliance of all Power Rangers to protect the galaxy. As he led Anton to bed, he realized that everything was just how he’d always wanted it to be.


End file.
